Outlines and Oneshots
by LadyRhiyana
Summary: Miscellaneous Labyrinth oneshots. NEW: Ch 33: "Lost in Translation (or, A Study in Aboveground Courting Rituals)". In which the goblins form an official matchmaking committee. Ch 34: "The Great Goblin". Crossover with The Hobbit. Yes, seriously.
1. Mortal Wisdom

A/N – Written for the Labyfic 'No Happy After' Challenge.

Disclaimer – I don't own Jareth or Sarah. Don't sue.

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**Mortal Wisdom  
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They overcame the dangers together, restoring peace and order to the Underground. The last challenge was over, and she had proven herself worthy of a place at his side. But their bargain was based on a fundamental misunderstanding, for he was not human, and he did not share the traditional human concept of love –

"Of course I love you," he murmured one night, in the intimate darkness. "But Sarah, I can't promise it will be forever. You cannot hold the heart to one love: we are all creatures of experience, we live, and learn, and grow, and change. It has been ten years since we first met, and you have changed immensely; will you still love me ten years from now, or fifty?"

She hated it when he spoke with such detachment. "In fifty years from now," she replied through gritted teeth, "I will be too old to look about for another."

"Yes. But I will still be as I am today."

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It was neither cruelty, nor callousness. It was the simple, harsh truth: humans aged and died, but the Fair Folk were eternally young and beautiful.

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"How old _are_ you?" she asked one day, still not willing to accept his immortality.

"I don't remember," he murmured, engrossed in the flicker of firelight on crystal, in the silent, distant whisper of the wind. Beauty and sensation distracted him so easily, because he had so much time to appreciate it. "I don't know the exact year. It's not something I've ever worried about."

Her eyes were dark and searching, seeking some sort of reassurance, a reflection of familiar thoughts and ideas. "I'm twenty-five years old, Jareth. If I'm lucky, I might live to be eighty or ninety –"

"Yes, I know. It is a human trait."

"No, you don't understand," she snapped, angry that he could not understand her mortality. "One day, I will die. Will you remember me then? Or will I be just another phase, a learning experience in your long, long life?"

"Sarah…" he sighed, reaching out to her, "I love you. Why must you question it? Take what we have now, and enjoy it. These tantrums –"

"No!" she shouted, wrenching away from him. "I can't do this. I can't stay here and–" She whirled away, turning to flee as she had done ten years ago.

"Sarah!" he hissed, grabbing her arm and pulling her back to him.

She lashed out, swung; felt the stinging, solid jolt as she connected. There was a small, terrible silence. As she stood, frozen, and watched, he touched his gloved hand to his mouth, holding his fingers up to examine the slick, coppery blood from his split lip.

It was red. Of course it was red.

But all the blood in the world could not make him human.

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She walked away.

He let her go.

She was in the bloom of her youth, a beautiful woman not yet in her prime. But one day that rich dark hair would streak silver, that smooth, unlined skin would sag, and her muscles would grow weak and lax. The light in her eyes would fade, and yet he would endure, as he was, for the rest of eternity –  
_  
Take what we have now,_ he'd said, _and enjoy it._

_Will you still love me when you are old, wise with the particular, bitter wisdom of mortality, but I am still unchanged?

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_


	2. The Robin Hood Effect

A/N - Written for the Labyfic Challenge #4:Sarah's occupation.

Disclaimer - I don't own the Labyrinth, or any of the canon characters or concepts. Don't sue me.

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The Robin Hood Effect

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"Well, I must say," her own personal demon drawled, "this is a new low, Sarah."

Leaning her head back against the stark, cold cement wall, she gave him a tired glare. "I didn't plan on getting caught."

"Most criminals don't," he said dryly.

She drew her legs up, shivering, wrapping her arms around her knees and hugging herself. "I was desperate, Jareth. My parents' debts, and Toby's medical fees – how else could I get the money?"

"You only had to ask, Sarah. I'd have plucked the moon from the sky for you."

"I didn't want the moon," she retorted, "I wanted three hundred thousand dollars. Is that so terrible? I needed it more than they did."

The Goblin King laughed, sinking down beside her, his glittering finery an extravagant contrast to her stark prison overalls. "Sarah, Sarah, Sarah… Still you believe in fairy tales. Robbing the rich to give to the poor is all very well for Robin Hood, but in this day and age, they call it embezzlement. Really, mortals take their money so seriously."

"That's because we can't conjure it up with a wave of our hands. It may be a joke to you, Jareth, but how am I going to pay for Toby's treatments now? Who's going to look after him while I spend three years – three years! – in prison?" She swallowed hard, her eyes burning with unshed tears.

A white, elegant hand tipped her chin up, forcing her to look at him. "Poor child," he murmured, serious now. "It's been a long time, hasn't it, since you've had anyone to rely on? It's hard, isn't it? Being a responsible, mature adult?"

Her mouth trembled. She forced it to still. "Are you saying that I can rely on you?"

Something flickered in those queer, mismatched eyes. "For a price."

Of course. Never a move without reason, never a boon without price. Always, the double-edged promises, the cursed gifts, the deceptive words. But he had her trapped, now. She had no more choice, no other way to turn.

"Anything," she said, her hands empty and somehow helpless. "If you'll look after Toby, I'll pay any price you ask."

His eyes darkened, something dark, cruel and primal flickering across his features, before he breathed out a long, shuddering breath.

"An acknowledgment," he said finally. "Tell me that your ordered, responsible, respectable life as an accountant was a dry mockery of what you could have had for the asking. Tell me that this world of steel, concrete and plastic is slowly killing you, and that you can't stand it any longer–"

"– I don't understand," she breathed. "What does this have to do with–"

"–Tell me the truth, Sarah, that I see in your eyes every time we meet, rather than the lies you constantly throw up as a shield between us. Tell me that you need me, that you're mine, and I won't give you the moon, I'll lay your three hundred thousand dollars and the key to this prison cell at your feet."

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Three days later, she was called before the parole board and given an official apology for the miscarriage of justice that had seen her so falsely imprisoned. In addition, they said, they would offer her five hundred thousand dollars in compensation for the grief and stress suffered – as long as she promised to keep quiet and avoid making an unnecessary fuss.

Sarah smiled graciously and shook hands, promising anything and everything. Because the night before, the hospital had called and told her that Toby had made a miraculous recovery, and that he could return home to her within a week…

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	3. Apologies

A/N – Written for labyfic on LJ.

Disclaimer – I don't own the Labyrinth or Hoggle. Don't sue.

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**Apologies **

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The blasted fairies had been at the rose bushes again. Mumbling under his breath, Hoggle patrolled his walled garden, armed with his trusty bottle of poison spray. Small swarms of the glowing pests arose as he neared the roses, taunting him in their chattering, high-pitched voices, laughing at his short, dumpy, awkward body.

_Sssssst!  
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A cloud of fairy poison, a high-pitched, feminine scream, and a satisfying thud as a crumpled body hit the ground.

Laugh at him, would they?

_Ssssst!_ Another scream, another thud.

Eat his Da's rosebushes? Two of them, this time, spiraling dramatically as they fell.

He'd show them!

_Sssssst! Ssssssst! Ssssssst! Sssssst!_

"Such a fierce fairy-slayer," a cool, accented voice spoke from behind him. "This garden is fortunate, to have such a determined protector."

Hoggle froze. He knew that voice. Slowly, he turned around. Leaning against the garden's honey-stone wall, his bright, sidhe skin a pale contrast to his all-black attire, was Bran, the Goblin King's right hand man – and the man who had killed Hoggle's Da.

"It was my Da's garden," he mumbled sullenly, not daring any stronger defiance.

"Yes," Bran answered. "A replica of his wife's, he said once."

Hoggle paused, struck by the memory of his Ma, old and bitter, after Da had been taken up for a criminal and banished. "He was the gardener in the family," he said curtly. "Not Ma. He made it for her."

Bran pushed away from the wall, trailing his fingers through the fragrant, bobbing flowers, his pale face unreadable. "He spoke of you often, you and your mother."

"I don't want to hear about it," he scowled, turning back to his roses and the fairies. But Bran's long, slender hand reached over his shoulder and stilled his spraying. Hoggle paused, made forcibly aware – not for the first time – of how much more powerful the bright, shining sidhe were.

"Hoggle," Bran said quietly, "his back was broken, his legs crushed. He would have lingered painfully for months."

"So you put him out of his misery," Hoggle snarled, his anger and frustration outweighing his normal cowardice. "Killed him, just like I'm killing these fairies."

"No. Not so easily. Fifty years, he stood by my side, by the King's –" He stopped suddenly, shoved his hands in his pockets. "For what it's worth, Hoggle, I am sorry."

"Sorry!" Hoggle clenched his fists, wishing – not for the first time – that he was tall and strong, with white shining skin and glowing eyes. "Can sorry bring back all those years… – Just go away," Hoggle sighed. "Just…go. Leave me alone."

Bran turned away, his face pale and taut.

He left Hoggle there, alone with his regrets and his memories. Some things could not be healed with an apology.


	4. Minstrels' Tales

Written for dmacabre on LJ. Inspired by my fascination with Arthurian legend.

Disclaimer – I don't own Labyrinth. Don't sue.

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**Minstrels' Tales**

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High up on the battlements of the castle he sits, his eyes narrowed against the setting sun, the evening wind tugging at his long, dark hair and fluttering the edges of his cloak.

Ghostly music drifts up to him from the throne room below, where a wandering minstrel plays his harp for the Goblin King's pleasure. He recognizes it, an old, old song, an epic tale of love and betrayal, and when he closes his eyes, the memories it invokes are still fresh, still terribly, terribly vivid…

"If the minstrel displeases you, brother Raven, then I will silence him forever."

Bran's eyes snap open. Turning his head, he beholds his King, his chosen charge, extravagant in tatterdemalion silks and lace. "You cannot silence minstrels," he replies, ever the pragmatic counselor. "What they sing, the common folk take as absolute truth."

"Nevertheless," Jareth says, "I would do it, for you."

It is an offer reckless in its glorious extravagance, and despite himself, Bran smiles. In all his life, he has only known one other man who would make such a gesture.

"The minstrel is a master of his art, as well you know," he answers finally. "But I am in no mood to hear of tragedy and the fall of kingdoms."

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"_Have hope, Bedwyr! Today will see an end to it, one way or the other." Artos claps him on the shoulder and laughs; the morning sun shines brightly on him, and his vibrant, unshakable confidence is enough to sweep Bedwyr up and carry him along with him. _

_It is hard to believe, sometimes, that there was a time before Artos. Bedwyr's youth had been lost to conflict and strife, invading armies and rival warlords tearing the country apart between them. He'd grown to manhood fighting a desperate, losing battle, the invaders driving his people back, back, always back –_

_And then Artos had arisen, larger than life, brilliantly charismatic, impatient, restless, and insatiably ambitious, somehow convincing them all to believe his impossible dreams. He gave a flagging, despairing people hope, led a divided, broken army to victory after victory, until it came to this – this day, here, on Badon Hill._

_No longer young, and far from impressionable, Bedwyr nevertheless feels himself falling under Artos' spell once again. "Do you truly believe we will emerge the victors?" Troubled, he casts a glance at the enemy's seething, howling ranks. "There must be three or four thousand of them…"_

_The King's eyes are firm and steady, a light burning in them like a zealot's fire. "Yes," he says simply. "We will be victorious, Bedwyr. With you beside me, and Cei, and Gwalchmai and Talorcan and all the rest of the Companions, we will drive the Wolves out and reclaim our lost homeland…" _

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"What do you see?" Jareth asks. "Up here on the battlements, in the twilight."

Child of Summer, raised in a frivolous, glittering Court of lies and deception, Jareth never quite knows what to make of grim, pragmatic Bran and his streak of old-fashioned romanticism. Once, long ago, Bran had spoken of Heroes and Honour, of Kings and their Duty towards their subjects.

"Illusions," Bran answers. "Dreams that I believed real, once." His face was blank, empty; Jareth wonders at the bitterness of his tone.

"Your grand passion?" he dares to ask. "What was her name?"

Bran stiffens. Jareth waits patiently, knowing that he was breaking their unspoken taboo, speaking of a long-distant past that Bran clearly wished only to forget…

"Morcant," Bran says finally. "Her name was Morcant."

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_In the dying firelight, she runs a comb through her long, dark hair, a sure, practiced movement she repeats over and over again, until it falls like a silken curtain to her hips. And as she combs, she sings softly, crooning strange, primitive songs beneath her breath, spells and enchantments taught to her by her mother, a woman of the old folk, the hill folk who had claimed this land long before the invading sidhe. _

_He watches her, drowsy, desirous, intoxicated by her dark, ancient beauty, so different from his own pale, luminous skin. He knows the brush of that silken hair, the warmth of her slim, compact body. He knows the breathy timbre of her voice in his ear, murmuring of lust and desire – _

"_Do you love him, Bedwyr?" Morcant murmurs, her voice dark and husky. "My noble, kingly brother?"_

"_Of course I do," he answers. It is the keystone and foundation of his identity; he is Bedwyr, beloved and loyal sword-companion of Artos, the flawed, charismatic King who had finally united his warring homeland and driven out the invading Sea-Wolves._

"_And you would do anything for him, wouldn't you, loyal Bedwyr." Her eyes are dark, dark, completely opaque and unreadable. They both arouse and disturb him, those shadowed depths, knowing that she was alien, Other, with her primitive dark beauty._

_She brings her mouth to his ear, biting gently on the lobe with her white, sharp teeth, a small, exquisite pain, and a tiny pleasure. "Did you kill the children?" she whispers._

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"She was the King's half-sister," he speaks the words into the night, here in the high place with only Jareth to hear him, "and his lover. She loved him, worshipped him, envied him, and hated him, all at once. When he turned away from her, horrified at the incestuous heir they had made together, all her love turned to hatred."

He turns to Jareth, watching that vivid, cynical face, the mismatched, curious eyes that had seen no more than four centuries. "Is it a familiar tale?"

Jareth says nothing.

"She turned her focus to me, after the King's marriage," he continues. "I was the First of his Companions, and I loved him; and soon enough I loved her just as passionately..." He falls silent for a moment. "But then it came to its inevitable end; they each sought to turn me against the other. I was forced to choose between them."

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_The dying sun falls on Camlann field, and all is still and silent, save for the ever-present black crows, feasting on the waste and slaughter of an entire generation. Bedwyr – no, he is Bedwyr no longer, Bedwyr died in the conflagration that destroyed nearly a hundred and fifty years of peace and prosperity – stands over the body of his dead King. Artos is noble even in death, the blood soaking his face and chest only adding to his regal presence, larger than life even now, sprawled broken on the black earth. _

_All the others are dead – Cei, Talorcan, Gawain, Gareth, and hundreds of others, nameless, who have never been immortalized in song. Even Medraut, the betrayer, the arbiter of his mother's poisonous will; Medraut lies broken half under Artos, his spear piercing the King's groin, the King's sword buried in his chest. Father and son, they killed each other, in the end, their causes and claims dying with them._

_It is oddly appropriate._

_Leaving the dreams of his youth behind him, he turns his back on his identity and his name and goes out into the world, alone, with only the crows for company._

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Bran was right, Jareth thinks. It is an old, old tale, often told, and repeated often enough in the long, treacherous history of the Underground. It has been thousands of years since that land was swallowed up by the ravenous invaders Artos had kept out for nearly two centuries. And then the invaders were been swallowed up in their turn – one of history's more bitter ironies.

"I have never, in all my years," Bran murmurs, almost in conclusion, "found anyone else who could make life and love and companionship half so glorious."

Jareth reaches out and puts an awkward hand on Bran's shoulder. Faced with such ancient, bitter grief, he does not know quite what to do –

Finally, Bran shakes his head, drawing his composure about him again and stepping away from Jareth's grip. "So," he says. "So. You will need to return to the hall soon, lest the minstrel begins to sing of the Goblin King's cold, sparse hospitality."

Jareth grins, his teeth sharp and predatory. "I don't fear the minstrel's empty verses. But if they disturb you, stay up here a little longer. Come back in when he is gone, and no longer sings of ancient ghosts –"

Their eyes meet.

Bran smiles.

And Jareth leaves him alone there, on the highest point, and returns to his duties as King. Bran watches him go, and then turns back to his ghosts and his illusions.


	5. Unspoken

**A/N – **The slash bug bit. Don't worry; it's very, very, very mild.

Disclaimer – I don't own Jareth or the Labyrinth. Don't sue.

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**Unspoken**

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Deep in the night, Jareth lay sprawled across his great, empty bed, staring into memory. He was not, by nature, introspective, and he didn't care to dwell too much on the past, especially not on things that could not be changed. But old ghosts and old passions pressed close about him tonight, dragged into the present by the unfamiliar mixture of grief, love and hatred that had filled him as he stood vigil, dry-eyed and stone-faced, at his father's pyre. Tonight he was no longer the ambiguous Goblin King, capricious and extravagant and sly. Tonight he was simply Jareth: doubtful, jaded, and so terribly, terribly weary.

A soft, almost soundless knock on the door intruded but failed to rouse him from his funk. He waved his hand, listless, and heard the locks disengage – and then his silent, faithful shadow flowed into the room, black cloak drifting about him like wings.

"This is not like you," Bran said, drifting over to stand by his bed, looking down at him and thinking Gods only knew what. "I had not thought you so melodramatic."

Normally such an accusation would have drawn an immediate, heated response. But Jareth had no energy for such obvious games, and he simply let it go, closing his eyes and turning away. In the silent darkness surrounding him, he could hear Bran's soft breathing, feel the warmth and solid reality of his presence – companion of a thousand late nights on the bitter, hard road, of unnumbered midnight conversations and intrigues, Jareth would know Bran's presence anywhere, even in the blackest, emptiest void.

Advisor, mentor, father-confessor, bodyguard, close companion, he was always, always _there, _by his side or at his back, often disapproving, but always present. And in the knowledge that Bran was watching over him, no doubt ready with a dour, disapproving comment in the morning, Jareth slept.

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He woke some time later, his eyes gritty as he fought his way to consciousness. It felt as though he were drifting in thin, diffuse fog, his senses dulled and useless – slowly, they returned: he felt the rough, scratchy embroidered covers beneath his back and his limbs, saw the familiar stone vaulting of his chambers, and the elaborately woven tapestries that seemed to shimmer and shift with the soft candlelight. It was raining; the soft pattering on the great glass windows hypnotic and relaxing, and the air smelled of clean, rain-washed air, the bitter, acrid smell of burning wood almost washed away.

"I must take him home, soon," he said quietly into the cool, damp air, drifting into endless golden summer of his long-vanished childhood. "My mother lies surrounded by flowers and greenery – he would wish to be beside her."

Bran made no answer. But Jareth felt his presence, nevertheless.

Thunder growled, low, in the distance, and a cold draught blew through the chamber, stirring the tapestries and sending the candle flames dancing. Outside, the rain increased in tempo, the dull pattering becoming a muted roar.

"I'm so cold," he breathed, shivering, twisting on the bed as he attempted to wrap himself in the sleek, silken sheets. But there was no warmth or comfort in this lonely, empty bed –

There was a soft, resigned sigh, and then Bran's great black cloak settled over him, surrounding him with the bitter-spicy scent of cloves – familiar, welcome warmth enfolding him. The bed dipped and rustled as Bran lay down beside him, sharing his warmth and solid strength, as he had done so many times before, when the road ahead seemed dark and hopeless.

"Sleep," Bran murmured softly. "I will keep you warm."


	6. Hardships Unnumbered

A/N – I wrote this some time ago, to fit in with First Impressions.

Disclaimer – I don't own Hoggle or the Labyrinth. Don't sue.

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**Hardships Unnumbered**

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For as long as he could remember, Hoggle's Mam had been old and worn, her mouth tightly pursed.

"Your Da abandoned us, Hoggle," she always said, taking bitter pleasure in her anger. "He took to the road because he couldn't live an honest life. He wasn't strong enough to stay."

They lived in an old, draughty wattle-and-daub hut, their tiny holding consisting of rocky, infertile fields hacked with backbreaking effort out of the hillside. Wrenching any type of productivity from the land took endless, soul-sapping drudgery, but Hoggle and his Mam kept at it, enduring with stubborn, bitter pride.

"My ancestors worked this same land for generations," she told him, over and over again. "We carved it out of the wilderness, took it for our own, and no bright Lord or Lady will ever take it from us. It's _our_ land, and we'll never leave it, Hoggle, not while there's still breath left in us."

When the word came that his father gone off with a bright sidhe lord, following him into the west to find a new, untouched land, Hoggle only wished he could do the same.

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	7. The Last of the Wine

A/N – This was originally intended for the Drunk!Jareth challenge at Labyfic on LJ, but it didn't turn out the way I intended it to. I couldn't bring myself to scrap it. The title is taken from the Mary Renault novel of the same name.

Disclaimer – I don't own Jareth or the Labyrinth. Don't sue.

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**The Last of the Wine**

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It was the last glass of the evening, a glorious, pale golden Summer wine, product of the sunlit vineyards of his homeland far, far to the east of the Goblin Kingdom. The taste and smell of it – rich, black earth, thick, bursting grapes – brought to mind the bright days of his youth and innocence, gone forever, now, like… like…

Shifting restlessly, he reached for the glass, a clumsy, awkward movement. It overbalanced and fell, shattering as it hit the ground, shards of crystal flying in all directions. Hastily, Jareth waved his hand, dulled reflexes finally reacting; the crystal shards froze in mid-air, and he paused a moment to admire the effect.

The dying firelight sent prisms of light flickering and sparking across the room, ephemeral illusions winking in and out of sight.

He was drunk enough to think it profound.

"_A pretty trick," _he could hear his father say, the too-familiar irony withering. _"A legacy of your misspent youth, I suppose."_

He had been a jaded, dissolute young blood, once, a restless younger son familiar with the worst taverns and drinking holes in the City. He and his equally aimless companions had spent their days and nights drinking, gambling and womanising, an endless parade of empty amusements.

"A boy's trick," he replied. "We were all boys, then. Before the war."

And then, because he did not like to think of the war, he deliberately tightened his hold on the hovering shards, concentrating on fitting them all together into a coherent whole once more, rebuilding the shattered glass as if it had never been broken.

The wine, though, the pale, extravagantly priced Cauvinion Gold, had already soaked into the gritty flagstones and was gone forever...

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	8. The Spectre at the Feast

A/N – Another drunk!Jareth fragment. This one is heavily influenced by Macbeth. Caeth & Ophir are Jareth's brothers from the Catalyst – I've twisted my own canon a bit.

Disclaimer – I don't own the Labyrinth. All rights belong to Jim Henson et al.

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**The Spectre at the Feast**

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_You have no power over me! _

_No power over me!_

_No power…_

The words echoed endlessly in his ears, and he fell, down, down, down, his great castle – solid rock and densely woven enchantment – collapsing to dust and rubble around him. He struck the earth hard, the unforgiving stone and soil refusing him their grace, denying him as emphatically as they had once welcomed him long, long ago.

There was no mercy in the Goblin Kingdom for a fallen king.

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Hours later, dishevelled and dissolute, walking very slowly and carefully, the Goblin King trailed his long, white fingers along the tumbled stones of his castle. He was very, very drunk, his strange, mismatched eyes glittering dangerously – the cannier denizens of the Labyrinth took care to keep very low, staying out of his way and making sure to give absolutely no offence.

Sober, his capricious humour might prompt him to random – and rarely fatal – acts of malice. Drunk, he became cruel and dangerous, his brilliant, glittering intelligence, cutting and vicious, turned against himself and anyone unfortunate enough to get in his way.

He did not drink much, but when he did it was horrendous.

"Nine hundred and ninety-nine years," he murmured, very softly. "And an eternity still to come –"

There was no reply, of course. He had not expected one: his ghosts were always silent, the faded remnants of a lifetime of treachery, ambition and upheaval. But on this night, of all nights, they were not cowering in sullen, fearful silence –

He swore angrily. "Do you think to mock me, Caeth? You have_ no_ right to judge me; no, nor you, Ophir. You valued stability above all else – you always turned a blind eye. No one else _dared_ to resist."

Caeth only leered at him, his spectral, blood-spattered face lit with terrible glee. Ophir looked gaunt and noble; the saintly brother, the martyr.

"And you," Jareth continued, remembering all those who had turned on him, forcing him into lifelong exile, "all you self-righteous, hypocritical fools – you who preferred a tyrant to a kinslayer…"

His mouth twisted. "Damn you all to _hell_. I will not let you destroy me again."

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	9. Gifts

**A/N – **Written for Pika.

Disclaimer – I don't own Jareth, or Sarah, or anything to do with the Labyrinth. Don't sue me.

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**Gifts**

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_The next day, the light woke her. _

_Surfacing from weird, chaotic dreams of misshapen goblins and alien kings, she forced her heavy eyes open and turned her head towards the soft glow. It was a crystal, a perfect glass sphere, delicate and deadly – _

_Her heart beating rapidly – in fear, in fascination – she reached out very, very slowly, before finally laying a single finger on the extraordinarily clear glass. _

_It was still warm._

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More than a decade had passed since she'd returned from her descent into the Underground, haunted by her own personal demon. For ten long years she'd heard his cool, mocking voice on the wind, had half-glimpsed his angular, alien features from the corner of her eye.

Sometimes, she felt his presence as she slept, felt the elusive brush of fingers down the length of her spine. She might have dismissed those nights as dreams, drifting fantasies, had it not been for the reminders he left behind him: snow-white owl feathers, and the scars and gouges of razor-sharp claws on her windowsill –

Once, after she was almost attacked in the park, the Goblin King left the man's stiff, frozen corpse at her back door, the poor man's face twisted in a rictus of unspeakable terror.

"_Sarah," _she thought she heard the wind whisper, sometimes. _"Sweet Sarah…" _

But this was no wistful, yearning suitor.

_Only fear me, love me…_

No promise without an edge, no gift without an unspoken price. He was _not _human, and he never would be, and she feared his very _other_ness, feared losing herself and her world in his fantasy.

When he called, she did not answer. When he watched over her at night, brushing his fingers over her skin, she pretended not to feel it. And when he left her his perfect, glowing, illusory crystals, offering her everything she could ever desire, she turned away.

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	10. A Messy Business

A/N – Sarah's mad rampage towards the Castle had far-reaching consequences. And it's not the Goblin King who has to clean up the mess afterwards.

Disclaimer – I don't own the Labyrinth. I'm merely messing about for my own entertainment. Don't sue.

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A Messy Business

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The city was burning.

It was a scene straight out of nightmare. Crimson and orange flame burned hellishly, sending clouds of billowing black smoke high into the night sky. Chaos reigned on the streets and in the crowded alleys, hysterical shouting and screaming mixing with the roar of the spreading fires and the deep, chilling war-chant of the invaders.

"OUT!" they howled, their faces twisted by hatred and fanaticism. "OUT! OUT! OUT!"

In their thousands they spilled into the city, their hearts filled with holy fervour. They brandished their crude, ill-made weapons, flaunting the blood that stained their blades and their rough, leathery hides. Carried away by their success in the outer-lying regions, convinced of the righteousness of their cause, they dealt death and destruction with utter, wanton abandon, destroying everything and anyone in their path.

"OUT!" they screamed as they dragged a young, cowering woman out of her hiding place and stabbed her to death in the streets. "OUT!" they chanted joyously as they speared a fleeing merchant, toying with him as he begged and screamed for mercy. "OUT!" they cried, over and over again, as they rampaged through the city towards the castle.

* * *

The King watched from his eyrie in the great tower, the small crease between his brows the only indication of his thoughts.

"Sire!" the captain of the guards called. "The goblins –"

The King turned his head. "Yes, captain," he said, "I am aware of it." His bleak, mismatched eyes seemed to stare straight through the captain, into a place and a time the younger man could only imagine.

They said that the goblins had been fearsome warriors, once, before the King's followers arrived from beyond the Bloody Mountains and took their lands, before displacement, disease and hunger reduced them to their current cringing, gibbering state. Throughout the long centuries, a number of discontented zealots and would-be messiahs had sought a return to the old ways, had tried to stir rebellion and incite their cousins into revolt – always before, the King had crushed them with little effort.

But this time it was different. This time he had no heart for it.

"Sire!" the captain tried again. "Sire, you _must_ –"

"_Must?"_ The King's terrible temper whiplashed, and for a moment his eyes sparked with his old strength and spirit. But then he sagged, the force of his will subsiding into dull apathy. "There is no mustLet them rampage and burn; they will tire of it, in time."

A third time – magical third – the captain appealed to his King. The oaths of allegiance were powerful, obligation flowing strong between both liege and lord. "Sire –"

A sigh. "_Enough_, captain." Languidly the Goblin King arose, his passive scrutiny abandoned as he stripped off his gloves. "Come, then," he said. "I will put an end to this folly."

* * *

Didymus sifted through the wreckage and debris, nudging stiffened, twisted corpses with the point of his rapier. "His Majesty hath been most thorough," he said.

Beside him, the captain of the guards made no comment. The edges of his soiled cloak trailed in the dirt, ripped and torn by goblin swords and billhooks. There had been hard fighting in the city streets – the rampaging goblin mob had been almost to the castle gates before the King finally emerged from his self-imposed solitude. Ungloved, his cruel eyes glittering with malice, he was no longer the impatient, cynical ruler exasperated with his witless subjects, but a terrifying figure straight out of goblin myth –

And, hours later, the survivors were left to deal with the aftermath.

The air was rank with smoke and the smell of burning flesh. Scattered fires still burned, and low moans and agonised whimpers marked the few survivors of the goblin horde. These, the captain would finish off with one brutal, efficient thrust; there would be no mercy for the failed rebels. The King had ordered it.

Granting another groaning, helpless goblin the _coup de grace_, the captain finally responded. "His Majesty waited long to intervene," he murmured.

The little fox coughed, unwilling to criticise his sovereign lord. "He hath his reasons, I warrant."

His Majesty was too busy brooding and obsessing over the human girl. She had challenged and defied the king at every turn, piquing his interest and intriguing him, to the point where he had thought of nothing else but the game – she had let loose a _rock-caller _in the goblins' shantytown, by all the gods, completely demolishing it, and still the King had allowed her to continue. He had been so enraged by her victory that he had refused to rebuild the devastated town, dismissing the growing complaints and discontent as irrelevant, retreating to his tower eyrie to watch over her through his crystals –

One could – and the captain most certainly did – place the blame for this current madness squarely at her feet.

* * *


	11. No Questions Asked

A/N - Written for liquidmirror in the labyfic fic exchange on LJ. The prompt was "Hoggle reflects on Sir Didymus".

Disclaimer - I don't own the Labyrinth, any of the canon characters, settings or situations. Don't sue.

* * *

No Questions Asked

* * *

Outside, the night was cold and bitter, lightning crashing overhead, the relentless wind blowing sleet and icy rain in all directions, but inside Hoggle's little hut the fire was warm and cheerful, filling the room with flickering, comforting light. Even so, Sir Didymus huddled in the overstuffed armchair, his whiskers twitching, flinching with every rumbling crack of thunder.

The brave knight, gallant and unflinching in the face of overwhelming opposition, was afraid of thunderstorms. In all the years he'd known him, Hoggle had never asked why.

There was an unofficial, unwritten law among the denizens of the Labyrinth, and that was _don't ask. _What was past is past, and if the King saw fit to accept someone, then it was not for his subjects to question his judgment. That Jareth's judgment was notoriously capricious and erratic was entirely beside the point. It was a capricious place, the Labyrinth, full of twists and turns and surprises; the creatures who found shelter within it were equally mismatched and strange.

Didymus, with his insane gallantry, his blind loyalty, his unexpected vulnerability, was no different.

"Prithee, Sir Hoggle," Didymus said faintly, lifting his head from his knees and fixing his dark, desperate eyes on Hoggle. "Do not worry yourself about me. I shall be fine in but a moment."

A great, forked line of jagged lightning turned the sky outside blinding white. Almost immediately, the unholy _crack _of the thunder sounded, loud enough to shake the foundations of the house, sending one of Hoggle's teacups sliding towards the floor.

Didymus jumped up in his chair, his russet hair standing on edge, his whiskers twitching in mad panic. Ambrosius shivered and whined pitifully, huddled on the floor with his paws over his eyes.

"Fine, huh?" Hoggle asked as he rescued the cup. "If you say so."

* * *

Fin


	12. Phantasm

**A/N** – A small drabble, an attempt to kick-start my J/S muse.

**Disclaimer** – I don't own anything Labyrinth. Don't sue.

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**Phantasm **

* * *

She dreams she sees him again, years later, in the city.

It is winter, and he is clad in black and grey and silver, cashmere and silk; his stark, pale beauty perfectly offset by the extravagant decadence. Haughty and imperious, he stalks through the thronging crowds, so completely otherworldly she wonders that no one else notices him.

In her dream, he turns his head and pins her with those predatory, mismatched eyes, holding her frozen in place –

_Sarah,_ the wind whispers, raising the hair on the back of her neck, _sweet Sarah…_

And then the crowd comes between them, sweeping him from view.

She wakes, her heart beating frantically, filled with fear and a strange, bitter yearning.


	13. Trust

A/N – A little Jareth!slash drabble, written mainly for atmosphere and description.

Disclaimer – Jareth and the Labyrinth are not mine. Don't sue.

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* * *

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**Trust**

* * *

In the darkest hour of the night, Jareth wakes.

Troubled, he slips from his bed, padding over cold flagstones towards the great arched windows, where the moonlight pours in, flooding his chambers with ghostly light. The great twisting, turning expanse of the Labyrinth lies below, sprawling in all directions; the night air is chill, and he shivers, his white skin trembling.

He has never been able to bear the cold.

On nights like these, he turns to what comfort he can. Not thinking beyond this one night – as he has done so many times before – he slips from his chambers and walks softly through the stone maze of the castle, his feet unerringly tracing the path to a massive, iron-bound oak door. The locks draw back at his touch, and the door swings inward on silent hinges; hesitantly, he intrudes into Bran's calm, private haven.

Jareth's protector is sleeping still, the dying firelight throwing shadows over his white body; fascinated, Jareth watches him, greedy in this rare moment of vulnerability.

He is no stranger to sex. He has taken countless lovers, both male and female; he is intimately familiar with depravity in all its many forms, has plumbed the depths of cruel, sophisticated decadence and wanton immorality. But as he trails his fingertips over Bran's skin, feeling smooth muscle, the raised texture of old, faded scars – no sleek, capricious courtier, this, but a stark, grim warrior – he wonders at this quiet warmth, this…_trust_.

Even now, Bran sleeps lightly, stirring at his touch, and then subsides, recognising Jareth's presence.


	14. Protector

A/N – Jareth is not the only one watching.

Disclaimer – I don't own Jareth, Sarah, or the Labyrinth. Don't sue.

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**Protector**

* * *

Jareth's white hands are filthy, his jagged, silk-and-velvet sleeves soiled with mud and blood. His eerie, mismatched eyes are fever-bright and glittering; there is a long, thin cut on his cheekbone that will leave a scar, if not attended to quickly.

He is a trickster, an intriguer with no love for war, but guile and cunning were not enough, this time; in the end, it came to force. And driven into a corner, brought to bay, Jareth turned and fought, feral and vicious –

The rough honeystone walls of the Labyrinth are crumbled and breached in places, and a haze of smothering ash and acrid smoke drifts about the Castle, but they stand inviolate, still; the invading armies had dashed themselves against Jareth's defences in vain. The Goblin King is not some petty princeling, to be conquered in an hour, or a day – not before, when he cared for nothing but cryptic games and riddles, and especially not now that he has something, some_one_ to protect.

Let Sarah sleep safe and innocent in her bed Aboveground, secure in the belief that the Underground had done with her; they would _not_ drag her down into their toils and intrigues, not while he could prevent it.

She had spurned him and rejected his offer. But she had been too young, then; when she was older, more mature, when the time was _right_, he would ask again.

And until then, he would make sure that no one else dared to approach her…


	15. Exile

A/N – Crossover with the Silmarillion. Some knowledge of Tolkien's backstory is probably a good thing.

Disclaimer – I don't own the Labyrinth, any of its canon characters or concepts. Nor do I own the Silmarillion, or anything else of the Professor's. Don't sue.

****

**Exile**

****

The Kingdom is dying.

It is a gradual death, slow, incremental change occurring over years and even decades. Taken individually, each shift in the reality of their world is less than nothing – but for those with eyes to see, it is obvious that their world is fading away.

The ancient paths are disappearing. Every year, the wasteland creeps closer and closer, threatening the outermost settlements on the borderlands. The walls that have stood for centuries are crumbling, spidering cracks appearing in previously secure defences.

In the oldest, deepest heart of the Labyrinth, the sacred springs are failing, and the ancient, gnarled grove begins to wither.

The King has abandoned his realm and left it to die.

*****

Didymus searches for him, high and low.

Faint echoes of his footprints remain in the stark, ochre-gold sands, almost buried by the constant, drifting winds. The ghost-trail of his presence lingers in the shadowed, tangled forests, leading to the remote, icy mountains, guarding the passage Above –

Finally, after months on end, Didymus finally finds the King in the world above, wandering the westernmost shores of the great ocean, staring hungrily at the horizon. The early morning air is filled with the roar of the waves and the smell of salt and seaweed, and the small knight finds himself almost overwhelmed by the vast, all-encompassing sea.

Even Jareth is a small figure, in comparison.

Still, Didymus gathers up his courage. "Sire," he ventures, "wilt thou not return to us?"

Jareth turns to face him, his mercurial features stark and grim.

"_The way is closed_," he says, hoarse and empty_. "It is barred to me_." He tips his head back, looking to where the morning star emerges from the mist, the brightest point in the sky. There is some terrible, bitter irony in his expression that Didymus does not understand.

In the silver dawn light, the King is bright, powerful, and old, unimaginably old, nothing like the vain, capricious, whimsical ruler of the Labyrinth, with his exasperated tolerance and wicked tricks. In all the myths and tales of the distant past, there is no mention of _before_: before the Labyrinth, before the Kingdom, before the _King, _history and legend are strangely silent. Didymus has never questioned this before.

But now, he begins to wonder, and to fear.

********


	16. Indian Summer

**A/N – **Written for whitemunin, in the 2008 Labyfic exchange.

**Disclaimer **– I don't own Labyrinth, any of the canon characters, situations or settings. Don't sue.

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**Indian Summer**

****************

It is the last day of a stifling hot Indian summer. She lies drowsing on the mossy bank of a trickling stream, her mind drifting, lost in the droning song of the crickets and the earthy, damp scents of moss and leaf mould and running water.

In her half-waking state, she sees them gather, minor spirits, nymphs and undines, wavering ripples in the torpid air. It is not the first time she has seen them, the lesser fae, half-glimpsed shadows in the corner of her vision, whispered voices just beyond the range of her hearing.

_Sweet Sarah, _their distant voices murmur._ Sleep, Sarah, and dream of the Labyrinth…_

***

Dreaming, she drifts through the Labyrinth, trailing her fingertips along the rough walls, feeling the heat radiating from the gritty, ancient stone and rising from the old, cracked paths beneath her feet.

It is late summer, and the air is hot and still. The sky is burning blue, and so gloriously clear it is almost dizzying to look upon. In the distance she hears the sound of trickling water, and it draws her further in, ghosting through twisting, turning corridors, following the echoing promise of cool relief. When it is close enough that she can smell it, damp and heady, she sees the wooden door set into the wall, half-hidden by layers of trailing ivy and clinging vines.

Brushing aside the heavy, concealing curtain of greenery, she sees that the door is old, old beyond imagining, incised with carvings so worn and faded that they are almost indistinguishable, and yet still so life-like that they seem to stare out at her, watching her, guarding their secrets and whatever lies beyond them. Nevertheless, the door opens at her touch, and when she steps through, still in her dream-state, doubt and disbelief suspended, she finds herself in an apple orchard, the trees covered in a carpet of white flowers.

The afternoon sunlight pours like gold over the small orchard, and the only sound is the heavy droning of distant bees, the rustling of the apple trees themselves, and the slow burble of water. Wide-eyed, she ventures further in, following the water's song, stepping lightly on the thick, springy grass, white petals drifting down around her.

A small, silver stream winds its way through the tangled trees. The water is ice-cold, gloriously sweet; she splashes it over her face and arms, laughing. And then some ancient, primitive instinct demands her attention, her pulse pounding –

The Goblin King lies sprawled beneath the oldest apple tree, the ancient, interlocking boughs bowing down as though to shelter him, casting dappled shadows across his slumbering form. In the drowsing summer heat, he wears only lightweight breeches and a linen shirt, slipping off one pale, finely formed shoulder – shorn of his extravagant finery, his feral, alien eyes closed, he is slender, almost vulnerable, hardly the threatening demon of her nightmares.

_He is beautiful_, she whispers, stepping closer, oh-so-cautious, to kneel down beside him. _I never saw it, before…_

_This is his deepest sanctuary, his place of truest seeming, _the lesser fae whisper. _There can be no deception here._

Slowly, hesitantly, she reaches out and tries to touch him. Suddenly restless, he stirs, his instincts pulling him from sleep.

…_Sarah? _he murmurs.

His eyes flutter open, unguarded, vulnerable. And in the instant before awareness floods back, before he wakes, the dream dissolves around her –

*********

She wakes, her heart pounding, to the sound of the small trickling stream and the cool touch of dappled leaf-shadow on her face.

By her hand, perfectly formed, lies a single fallen apple-blossom.


	17. The Winter King

**A/N – **A mirror ficlet to Indian Summer which I did not submit to the exchange. A product of the same prompt, provided by whitemunin.

**Disclaimer – **I don't own the Labyrinth, any of the canon characters, settings or situations.

* * *

**The Winter King**

* * *

Dreaming, she drifts through the Labyrinth, trailing her fingertips along the walls; ice coats the gritty stone, slick and smooth, and gusts of freezing snow skitter and swirl across the ancient, cracked paths around her ankles. It is midwinter, and the air is bitter and chill. The world around her seems dark, despairing, in the last stages of a long, slow death. Even the sky, low and clouded, adds to the subdued atmosphere and the feel of endless silence.

In the distance, though, she hears the sound of trickling water – and it draws her further in, ghosting through twisting, turning corridors, following the echoing hint of spring, of the coming thaw. When it is close enough that she can smell it, sweet and heady, she sees the wooden door set into the wall, half-hidden by layers of trailing ivy and clinging vines.

Brushing aside the heavy, concealing curtain of winter greenery, she sees that the door is old, old beyond imagining, incised with carvings so life-like that they seem to stare out at her, watching her, guarding their secrets and whatever lies beyond them. Nevertheless, it opens at her touch, and when she steps through, still in the dream-state where doubt and disbelief are suspended, she finds herself in an apple orchard, the trees nothing more than bare branches clawing at the sky, coated in white snow and ice.

The subdued light plays over the small orchard, so still and lifeless, and the only sound is the distant whistle of the wind and the slow, creeping burble of running water. Wide-eyed, she ventures further in, following the water's song, stepping lightly through the thick, piled snow, white flakes drifting down around her like apple blossoms.

And then she sees him.

The Goblin King lies sprawled in the snow, half curled in on himself, sheltered by the oldest apple tree with its ancient, gnarled trunk and heavy, interlocking branches. As she hastens towards him, a sudden wind stirs through the orchard and sets the trees rustling and whispering, and wild flurries of snow whip up out of nowhere, tugging sharply at her hair and clothes. She cries out in fear, and the wind subsides reluctantly, almost sullenly –

Heart beating swiftly, she steps cautiously underneath the ancient tree's sheltering branches, and kneels down beside the Goblin King. He lies pale and still, barely breathing, and shocking crimson anemones bloom where blood seeps, thick and slow, from a deep wound in his side. Far in the distance, she hears the old, wailing lament begin, the nameless song of grief for light extinguished and the death of the bright King. It is a song of death and rebirth, and it sends a primeval chill down her spine as she reaches out, disbelieving, to touch the ground where the King lies.

The snow is stained by blood, vivid, shocking red, and before her eyes it slowly melts, tiny trickles of ice-melt gathering and coalescing into a trickling rivulet of flowing water –

It is the beginning of the thaw.


	18. Caprice

**A/N - **Written for whitemunin in the 2008 Labyfic exchange. The prompt was: The Goblin King meets the Sun King. What if history hiccuped and Jareth met Louis XIV for dinner? Would they discuss politics, power or their clothes?  
**Plot Summary/Author's Notes: **Jareth gravitates to decadence and extravagance. Of course he would find his way to Versailles.  
**Disclaimer:** I don't own the Labyrinth, any of the canon characters, situations or settings. Don't sue.

* * *

Caprice

* * *

The sailors had seen him for what he was. It had amused him to see their sidelong, wary glances, to see the signs they made against evil and enchantment when they thought he was not looking. But then sailors the world over were far more open-minded than their land-bound kin; a full year, he had spent among the jaded sophisticates of Charles II's debauched court, and not one of them had suspected him of being anything other than human. Most men did not think to find his kind amid the filth and clamour of mortal cities.

Jareth, though, was accounted strange even among his own people.

His enduring interest in humans had lasted beyond the normal youthful curiosity. More than simply stirring and provoking mischief, as he had done when he was very young, he loved indulging his tastes for mortal flesh and mortal passion, loved the illusion that he was part of the swift, tumultuous progression of mortal life. He had walked among them for a long time, now, long enough to appreciate and enjoy their foibles and foolishness – _too _long, and too much, muttered many of the lords of the Underground, who had no liking for his eccentricities.

But he was not, and never had been, a creature of logic, to be swayed by reasoned argument or influenced by the opinions of others.

Stepping off the ship in Calais, he took a moment to absorb the impact of one of France's greatest sea-ports. Merchants and sailors of all races, from all the corners of the world, met and mingled here, unloading cargoes, buying and selling, haggling at the tops of their lungs and in ten different languages that Jareth could pick out at that moment. The air was filled with the scents of tar and sodden rope, of unemptied bilges and seawater, of exotic spices and foods and the reek of thousands of human bodies.

Breathing deeply, he drew it all into his lungs, intoxicated by the incredible vitality of it all. Ancient memories stirred, half-remembered visions over-laying the present scene; the first time he had walked this land, there had been no more than a huddle of half-constructed huts in the wilderness, the inhabitants small, dark-haired and dark-eyed, wary and properly respectful of the shining stranger in their midst. Now, so the lesser fae whispered, the King of France was building palace magnificent enough to match even the greatest houses of the Underground. It was more than enough to pique his curiosity.

Thus the ruined coach left waiting for him in an alley near the end of the docks, scarred and splintered, with four broken-down nags standing dispiritedly in the rotting traces. Trailing his hand along the once-glossy finish, he gathered spider-silk and scattered straw, rotted hemp and gossamer netting and wove it into his illusion with consummate, practiced skill. Amid glittering shards of crystal, the pitiful equipage became a sleek, fashionable travelling carriage pulled by a team of perfectly matched whites. His own raiment, subdued, travel-worn cloth, became gold-embroidered plum velvet, his scarred boots taking on a mirror-bright finish. Cloaked in illusory magnificence, he climbed into the carriage and with a silver-capped ebony walking stick rapped peremptorily on the ceiling.

"Versailles," he ordered.

****************

Louis, by the Grace of God, the Sun King of France – a pretty conceit, one that pleased him immensely – was intrigued.

He held informal court in one of the ballrooms of his newly constructed palace, while all around him the brightest lights of France revolved, clad in their richest, most extravagant plumage. Haughty, powerful seigneurs and their ambitious ladies, descended from quarrelsome warrior dukes who had once ruled like kings, now waited on his pleasure, bankrupting themselves to keep up their magnificent appearances. They wore silks and velvets and satins, ruched and embroidered and embellished, strutting like peacocks in all the colours of the rainbow. Jewels flashed on ladies' white breasts, or from the midst of foaming falls of lace. The warmth of hundreds of bodies and thousands of dripping wax chandeliers rose into the air, along with the smells of perfume, sweat, and musk, strong enough to make anyone dizzy –

All for the furtherance of his glory and his reign. A hundred years ago, it would have been money better spent on mercenaries and munitions.

However, it was not the magnificence of his court that intrigued him, for he had seen it day after day for years on end. Nor was it the inevitable power-games and politicking that always lay beneath the bright, glittering surface of such a display. No, the King's eye had been caught by a stranger.

Among so many bright, gaudy courtiers, the stranger stood out in funereal splendour: his black velvet frock coat was embroidered with silver thread, and his knee-breeches were dove-grey. Crisp white falls of cobwebbed lace cascaded at his neck and wrists; his hands were white, his fingers long and elegant, and a shocking gleam of emerald winked from his finger. Touches of kohl outlined and highlighted his strange, feral eyes, making his appearance even more fantastical and otherworldly, and a silver ring pierced his earlobe.

The stranger caught Louis' eye and held it, radiating fearless, haughty amusement. He looked upon the absolute King of France as though he were an equal, and rather than enraging the King it amused him. If he thought the stranger would come, he would have crooked his finger and ordered one of his chamberlains to summon the impertinent fellow – but Louis prided himself on his judgment of men, and something told him this one would never, ever come to heel.

And then a swirl of brilliant colour distracted his eye, and when he turned back, the stranger was gone.

***********

The next morning, as he spurred his horse back to the palace in the early dawn light, he saw the stranger again. This time, rather than his black and silver finery, he wore a jacket and breeches of dull brown-green, and rather than dominating an entire ballroom with his presence, he was sprawled instead in an ancient, broad-beamed oak, lying full-length along a thick, venerable bough as though he was completely at home.

And so it was that Louis began to suspect the true nature of his strange guest. His childhood nurse, an old Breton woman, had once told him tales of the Shining Ones, the Lords and Ladies under the hollow hills. They were wily and capricious, she whispered, and would play cruel games with mortals for their own amusement – bargain with them at your peril, she had told the young prince.

"Monsieur le Fey," he said. "To what do we owe this…honour?"

The stranger's eyes glinted. "A merry greeting to you, O Sun King," he drawled with almost feline amusement. "Greetings and gifts I bring from my master, a great King of the Underground, in honour of this, the anniversary of your reign."

Louis distrusted such lazy caprice. Nevertheless, he inclined his head graciously.

_Their fairy gold is crafted of naught but autumn leaves, and will vanish with the morning sun._

"Precious jewels from the mines of Allevyssion," the stranger intoned, lifting his white hand and spilling a river of sparkling, multicoloured gems to the ground, "and silks and finest damask from the caravans of Samarkand." Drifting veils of fabric so fine it was almost transparent, in shades of crimson and purple and lapus lazuli, danced and twisted at the stranger's whim. "The rarest spices of Wysteron and Selevonne, and the golden wines of the Summer Country – all of these and more, I would lay at your feet, O Sun King."

"And how much of it will still be here in the morning?"

For a moment, the stranger stared at him, all pretence and affectation dropped –

And then he laughed, genuine amusement devoid of all mockery and irony except, perhaps, self-mockery. The glittering jewels and billowing fabrics slowly faded and disappeared, revealing pebbles and torn sail-cloth.

"In truth," he said, "my master commands but little of the Underground's riches. His power is absolute, but his kingdom, I fear, is not –" Here, his eyes began to dance once more with capricious deviltry. "But there is one commodity, O King, of which he is in great supply. A fitting gift, I deem, to grace even your great house."

Despite himself, Louis was amused. "Then we will be pleased to accept it, Monsieur Le Fey," he said. "And we will remember you when we look upon your gift." In truth, he doubted he would ever forget this surreal encounter.

"Done!" the stranger cried, twisting his wrist and producing a perfect, crystal sphere which shattered in a shower of glittering sparks and dust.

When the sparks and dust cleared, Louis was alone in the clearing.

********

Half-expecting some twisted, macabre offering, the King proceeded through the rooms of his palace, he and his most favoured courtiers searching for the fey stranger's 'gift'. He found it in the largest, most imposing of his ballrooms –

Mere hours ago, the walls had been gold-veined white marble, hung with rich blue velvet tapestries. Now, the tapestries were gone, and the marble covered by brilliant mirrors, endlessly reflecting the room and its inhabitants in a dizzying display of grandeur and sheer, extravagant wealth.

********

Underground once more, Jareth stood at the entrance to his Labyrinth, hands on his hips as he surveyed the newly cleaned pathways and stone corridors. The gritty dust and sand accumulated over century upon century of wear had been plaguing him for years, the wind off the deserted wastelands blowing up great sandstorms that had caused him and his subjects untold inconvenience.

The chance to be rid of it all had been too good to pass up. Even creating the Sun King's overwhelming Hall of Mirrors had not cleared all of it away – there had been enough left over to decorate the walls of his own wretched, primitive ballroom, scarred and smoke-blackened by centuries of goblin revelries.

A good day's work all 'round, all in all.


	19. Carnivale

**A/N - **The last of my ficlets written for the labyfic exchange. Whitemunin asked for Jareth, Sarah, and Carnivale in Rio de Janeiro.  
**Disclaimer - **I don't own the Labyrinth. No profit was made in the writing of this fic.

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**Carnivale**

* * *

The moment she set foot on the streets she could feel the anticipation. Quick, pounding drums, wild chatter and excited speculation, the restless, roiling feel of a city that was vibrantly, primitively alive – it fired her blood, and drove her heart to beat faster.

Dance, love, and live for today, the whole city seemed to say, because tomorrow it will be too late.

"The last gasp of indulgence and carnality," Jareth murmured in her ear, his warm breath sending shivers down her spine, "before Catholic guilt resumes. You mortals are so very wary of pleasure."

She did not give him the satisfaction of a response. Still, she was almost hyperaware of his presence, the warmth of his body at her back, the tightly leashed, almost subliminal thrum of his magic – she wondered that no one else even suspected that he stalked along behind her.

In truth, she was a little glad of his companionship. Rio de Janeiro was almost overwhelming in all its glory and infamy, the great statue of Christ the Redeemer overlooking one of the most violent cities in the world. Beneath his outstretched arms, nearly twelve million souls sheltered – a huge percentage of them in absolute poverty, while others luxuriated in enormous wealth.

And once a year, for five glorious days, the city cast aside its troubles and cares and gave into the fierce abandon of Carnivale. It was the party to end all parties, the streets filled with dancing and singing, a city-wide explosion of extravagant colour and music celebrating life and love and excess of all kinds.

Thus Sarah's presence here, with her own private demon in all his glory. She had woken to his touch, startled out of deep, exhausted sleep by the tickle of his flyaway hair. Before she could think to protest he had grasped her hand and pulled her into spinning nothingness, and then –

And then had come the bright, whirling arcs of colour and the pounding music, the roaring murmur of thousands upon thousands of revellers, and the glorious, vibrant energy of this wildest of cities. Everywhere Sarah looked, extravagantly costumed dancers whirled and gyrated in the streets, sequins and feathers and glittering masks uneasily reminding her of a long-vanished hallucination, though this was far wilder, far more primitive. The sheer press and throng of people, laughing and shouting and cheering, was nothing she'd ever encountered before.

Unasked, Jareth pressed closer to her, drawing her against him, so close that she could feel his swift heartbeat and his unsteady breathing.

"Sarah…" he breathed, his voice a low, hoarse undertone. His hands tightened on her waist. The atmosphere excited him, she realised, the seething crowd, the almost palpable aura of sex and abandon.

Unable to stop herself, she turned. As always, every time he appeared to her, he was an unsettling mix of fantasy and nightmare. In his silks and velvets and lace, black and grey and silver, he could have stepped straight out of 18th century Versailles, but his white teeth were sharp and predatory, and his eyes glittered wildly behind his mask, all twisted horns and feathers and sharp barbs.

"Why here?" she asked, her voice almost lost in the noise. "You know what I think of masquerades."

His smile was feral, almost predatory. "Ten years ago," he drawled, "you were a girl, with girlish fantasies. Now you are a woman – and your fantasies are older, darker…"

She started violently, tried to pull away, but he held her too tightly. The drums pounded out their driving, primal rhythms until the very earth seemed to shake beneath her.

"This is not one of my fantasies," she whispered.

"No," he acknowledged. "But it is one of mine."

And the world skipped a beat.

As she frowned up at him, utterly bemused, he lowered his glittering, alien eyes. "You will forgive me, sweet Sarah," he said dryly, "if I have dreams of my own."

*********

The world went black. The lights, the colours, the music and the dancers and all the frenzied gaiety of Rio de Janeiro in full Carnivale simply winked out of existence.

And she woke alone in her bed, her apartment still and quiet, the last vivid remnants of her vanished dream echoing in the empty silence.

*********

End


	20. Poison

**A/N** - Consumptive!Jareth.

**Disclaimer** – I don't own Jareth, or anything else to do with the Labyrinth. Don't sue.

* * *

**Poison**

* * *

She dwelt in the great City, a nightmarish land forever marred by unnatural man-made materials, constant chemical emissions, and ever-present, poisonous iron. Her three companions – lesser fae who could survive where the bright, shining King could not – visited her often, returning with tales of her life, of how much she loved the swift energy of her concrete, glass and bitumen world. They spoke of how she thrived, more beautiful than ever, and of how human suitors flocked to her, drawn by the touch of the Underground that lingered even now, more than ten years later. And as they stood before the King, they watched as he grew ever more grim, his eyes increasingly dark and troubled.

* * *

Finally, after more than a year, the King came to a decision. The gibbering, cackling goblins gambolling about his throne room were the only audience to the most desperately courageous choice in Jareth's long life. As he stood up abruptly from his throne, his mouth white and set, they looked up from their revelry for a long moment – and then their attention was distracted once more, and they turned back to their mindless play.

Ignoring them, Jareth strode swiftly into the castle proper, trying to calm his frantic pulse. If he was to do this, it must be now, before his good sense had the chance to return. Hurrying through the corridors, he came at last to the highest point of the Castle, the tower room with its four great arched windows overlooking the Labyrinth. Below him, stretching in all directions to the distant haze of the horizon, was his Kingdom – hard-won, long centuries ago, when he had been young and ambitious and convinced of his own immortality.

He spared it no more than a glance. It was not enough, any longer. It had ceased to be enough from the moment he first crossed wits with Sarah.

Clenching his fists, he drew in his power, barely conscious of the high-pitched chiming of fragile glass crystals. Fixing his intention deep in his mind, he forced open the veil between the world Underneath and the world Above –

And, heart pounding madly, he stepped through.

* * *

Time passed.

The great City was an unnatural blight upon the earth, its heartbeat a cacophonous din that roared in his ears. It was utterly inimical to his nature, but he would endure it, for _her._

During their last, destructive confrontation, Sarah had triumphantly declared herself his equal, barring him from wielding any influence – no matter how slight – over her in any way. And so where he might once have given her a little push – only slight, for he had his own scruples – he had perforce to wait for her to allow him into her world. After two full months, she still refused to acknowledge him, even to the point of looking straight through him when he stood no more than a few paces away.

Any enjoyment he might have derived from the spirited chase was utterly negated by the consequences of so long Aboveground.

Once, centuries ago, he had passed through a land so striated with iron ore that the very earth was crimson and even the rivers ran red. Of those who had followed him on that journey, nearly one third had died in agony, choking on their own blood and bile; even the strongest among them had suffered long-lasting injuries. The air in Sarah's world had the same bitter, metallic reek, corrosive and polluted.

Coughing hoarsely, he held a tattered, discoloured handkerchief to his lips, pulled it away knowing full well what he would see – spots of crimson blood staining the fabric, signs of his slow deterioration towards wretched mortality.

The lesser fae, those strange beings who made this iron-and-concrete hell their home, watched his slow descent with avid curiosity. They whispered amongst themselves of one of the great ones brought low by love, some of them gleeful, others with barely hidden pity. Jareth cursed them, clutching his ragged coat about him and staring up at her window. He knew that she stood there, by her curtains, and stared out at him –

And he knew the very moment she drew the curtains across and shut him out.

He began to cough again, harsh, wracking coughs that tore at his throat and forced him to his knees in the filthy street, his handkerchief pressed helplessly to his lips. This time, the blood was thick, and dark, and more than just spotted.

Concerned whispers surrounded him, long, misshapen fingers tugging at his coat and hair, urging him to his feet. _"Away, away, O Shining One," _they whispered. _"You will die here; you cannot stay."_

He drew in a hoarse, desperate breath, looked up at her window one last time.

She was gone.


	21. Four Lives

**4 historical figures whose lives Jareth changed (and one from the future)  
By LadyRhiyana  
**Written for **aliasheist** in the 09/10 Labyrinth fic exchange at labyrinth_ex. Go check it out.  
**Prompt**:_ Jareth befriends a famous historical figure and both are changed for the experience. Who was it, when, and where, and under what circumstances do they meet?  
_**Plot Summary/Author's Note:** In which we see 4 genuine historical (or at least quasi-historical) figures whose lives Jareth has meddled in. And 1 thrown in just for fun.

* * *

**Four Lives**

* * *

1.

The hammering on his door began just as the sun rose over the horizon. The old house-slave shuffled his way to the entrance, grumbling under his breath – only to be rudely thrust aside by the impromptu guest.

"Where is your Hades-damned master?" The shouted demand echoed throughout the whole house. "Wake him immediately!"

Jareth yawned, pleasantly fatigued, and anticipated the result of last night's mischief and mayhem. Swift, impatient footsteps echoed on the mosaic floors, and moments later a young man erupted dramatically into his bedchamber, fists clenched, tawny eyes blazing.

"Demon!" the young man spat. "Do you know what you have done?"

"Why don't you tell me," Jareth drawled, rising from the bed and stretching; he felt the other's eyes on him, and smiled.

"The guardian sth-_st_atues!" The young man turned to pace, the edges of his long cloak trailing rakishly on the floor. "Every _single _one in the city smashed and defiled last night. Blasphemy of the worst sort, and _now, _of all times –"

"And you and your friends' little play on the Mysteries wasn't blasphemy?" Jareth's voice was deliberately taunting.

The young man's eyes – curiously leonine – turned molten gold with wrath. "That was different," he snarled petulantly.

He really was quite beautiful: a natural athlete, a brilliant intellect, the force of his potential – everything he was, everything he could one day be – burning in him unrestrained like wildfire. Even his flaws were larger than life. They said that he'd gone so far as to bite one of his wrestling partners, once, when he'd been in danger of losing.

Jareth believed it.

"Alcibiades," Jareth soothed, gripping the other's shoulders, bracing him, "they won't sail without you, no matter how many statues they think you've defiled. You're Athens' darling, her brilliant golden child. They _need_ you – do you think they stand a chance of success without you?"

The flattery worked like magic on Alcibiades' ego. His eyes brightened, and he laughed, spilling warmth and charisma with careless abandon. "Ha! Those useless old men – they will _beg_ me to fight for them. You'll see – it will be glorious, just like you promised, old friend."

Jareth smiled. "Yes, my dear," he said, almost too softly for Alcibiades to hear. "You'll blaze a trail across Greece that will never be forgotten."

* * *

2.

The battle-fever had cooled, leaving behind the dull awareness of pain, small cuts and bruises taken during the battle and overlooked until now. A sense of empty weariness weighed him down, and he thought longingly of his bedroll, back at his foster-father's encampment. But the princes and chieftains gathered round, exclaiming –

_Artos the Bear!_

_The young hero! Saved Uther, when the battle looked lost!_

– And his foster-father pushed him forward and would not let him escape.

So it was that hours later, worse the wear for drink, he stumbled out of the close, crowded tent and into the night.

"There you are," a voice said, exasperated. "I've been waiting for hours. I thought those brutes would never let you go."

Artos spun around. "What – who are you? What are you doing here?"

The stranger laughed, a low, chuckling sound, and emerged from the shadows. The flickering torchlight illumined his vivid, unearthly face and glittering eyes. Instinctively, Artos made the sign against evil and enchantment; the stranger's eyes noted the gesture, and his lips curled in cruel amusement. "Who I am," he drawled, "is of no matter. What I am, you can probably guess. And as for what I am doing here –"

The stranger gestured dramatically and plucked a delicate crystal out of mid-air. "I am the man who can give you your dreams, my dear." He held the crystal out to Artos, who made an aborted movement towards it before he snatched the crystal precipitously away. "Ah! For a price, of course."

"I have already won success in battle for myself," Artos retorted defiantly. "The King himself rewarded me for my heroism today."

The stranger's eyes flashed. "Not that paltry dross, boy! I know, deep in your heart, you believe you were meant for something _more, _some greater destiny than your foster-father's war-band. I've seen your frustration as you see the invaders come ever closer, while the petty princes and chieftains bicker amongst themselves."

"Enough!" Artos snarled. "You cannot know –"

"You may even be right, Artos. I see greatness in you, shining like a great light –" The stranger stepped closer, close enough to touch. "I can give you those dreams, Artos," he whispered. "I can make your wishes become reality."

For a moment, Artos let himself be seduced by the gleaming light in the stranger's eyes. Could it really be true? "For a price," he repeated cautiously.

The figure threw back his head and laughed. "There is always a price, my dear. But it will be nothing you cannot afford to pay, I swear it."

_"What_ price?"

"I do not know. But _you _will, Artos, when the time comes, which will not be for many years yet, and long after your vision becomes reality. So, what say you?"

Once more, the stranger extended his hand, the crystal balanced delicately on his fingertips. Inside the gleaming glass sphere, Artos could see everything he'd ever dreamed of, close enough to reach out and touch.

_Nothing that you cannot afford to pay_. In the arrogance of youth, flushed with the elation of his first battle, Artos stepped forward and took the crystal, accepting the bargain.

The stranger smiled, revealing sharp white teeth, but Artos' focus shifted, then, to a hint of movement in the shadows –

A woman, her eyes sloe-dark and full of secrets, her hair thick and black and wreathed in dizzying scent.

"My name is Morgause," she said, her voice low and husky, intoxicating.

When he reached out to take her hand, just as he had reached out to take his dreams, the stranger faded away into the night, leaving only the echo of his laughter behind.

* * *

3.

He was young, poor, but too proud to accept charity. The law and his tyrannical masters ground him deeper and deeper into helpless poverty every day, and yet he did not complain, did not resist; his defiance was grim, stubborn endurance and his determination to survive.

He was starving, and yet he would not turn poacher, not even when the forests abounded with game.

He fascinated Jareth. And reckless, capricious creature that he was, Jareth could not help but interfere.

"Sweet Robin," he crooned, "why not take your bow and go hunting in the forest? No one will ever find out – I have experience in such deceptions."

"I've told you why," Robin growled, ever the dour, Saxon pragmatist. "Because I don't want to be hanged." Still, for all their hairy stolidness, Jareth much preferred the English to the iron-souled Norman invaders, who had no reverence for the secrets of their conquered land.

"You'd rather die a wretched peasant, broken by hunger and poverty, a worn old man before you've seen thirty winters?"

"Aye!"

They'd had this discussion many times before. Quite frankly, Jareth was tired of it, tired of the dull weariness creeping into his sweet Robin's eyes, and tired of the arrogant Normans.

Clearly, it was time for drastic measures.

The next day, Robin woke to find a freshly slaughtered deer hanging by the door of his tiny hut.

"In God's name, what have you done?" was Robin's anguished question. "Do you know what they'll do to me if they find out?"

"Robin, my darling," Jareth drawled, "hanging is the least of your problems, I'm afraid."

_"What?"_

"My dear, I am not the woodsman you are. There are two foresters lying dead in the woods, arrows with your quite distinctive fletching driven straight through their throats."

Jareth laughed merrily at the expression of sheer horror on Robin's face.

"Oh come now, they won't kill you, sweet Robin. They'll have to catch you first…"

* * *

4.

London was brash, bustling, its streets crowded and filthy, the tavern rowdy with cheap wine and congenial, if drunken companionship. It was midsummer's eve, and the young playwright in fraying shirt-points and a stained ruff took it all in with unabashed delight, laughing and revelling in the joy of being alive in this, the greatest of times in the greatest of cities.

A stranger in the shadows drew his eye, a flash of quick, unnatural grace and wild elegance. It reminded him of a dream he had once, long-forgotten –

Before he knew what was happening, he found himself on his feet, following the half-glimpsed stranger out into the street. The good-natured crowd pressed close around him, and an acquaintance called to him, laughing from across the way –

"Will! Where are you going?"

– but, unheeding, he forced his way through, in search of fly-away white hair and tattered silk and velvet.

He followed the stranger through winding cobblestone lanes crowded by close-built shops and houses, smelling of rotting garbage and the salt of the Thames; past the tar-and-spice scented docks and the sharp tang of the estuary mud-flats; out beyond even the outskirts of the city where the cobblestones gave way to rutted roads and eventually soft grass underneath his feet.

Panting – he'd walked further tonight than he had done in years – Will bent over to catch his breath. When he straightened up, the stranger was right there, before him, watching with cool, glittering eyes.

"Why are you following me, mortal?"

Something in the indifferent curiosity brought Will back to his senses. Just what _was_ he doing running after an unearthly stranger, following him out in the night?

"I…I don't know," he answered frankly. "I just…found myself on my feet, moving after you."

The stranger tilted his head, considering. "My glamour must be weaker than I realised. It hits particularly susceptible mortals hard, sometimes." He drew a hand over his face, and Will wasn't sure what happened – it was as if his light dimmed, and for the first time since Will caught a glimpse of him in the tavern, he could think clearly once again.

"Is that better?"

"Yes," Will said, blinking dazedly. "Yes, thank you."

"Good." And with that, the stranger turned his back and continued on his way.

"Wait!"

The stranger slowed, stopped, and turned, all with a distinct air of exasperation.

"What do I do now?" Will asked.

"What business is that of mine? _You_ chose to follow me; now go back the way you came, mortal."

"But –"

A sigh. "Do you fear that you will come to harm? I can provide you with safe-passage, if it will hasten your departure."

"No, it's not that!" Will blurted out desperately. "Just… Where are you going?" Now that he was free of the glamour's compulsion, he found himself prey to the insatiable curiosity that had ever been his downfall.

There was a moment of silence.

"Why, to the midsummer celebration, of course," the stranger said. "At the court of Oberon and Titania."

* * *

5.

The hounds were baying on his heels, and all he could do was run, run, run. Keep running, even though his breath burned, every step jolting and jarring, every movement pulling at the crusted phaser burn high on his back. The child in his arms whimpered fearfully, clutching hard around his neck; he could barely restrain a wave of dizzy blackness.

"I'm scared, Jim," the young boy moaned. "I don't wanna die!"

"They won't catch us, Kevin," Jim Kirk* swore. "They _won't. _Starfleet'll be here soon; they'll save us, you'll see."

Jim's father was in Starfleet. As soon as he was old enough, Jim was determined to enter the Academy to follow in his footsteps. And nothing, not even genocidal Governor Kodos' execution squads, would stand in his way.

But no matter how fast he ran, how many streams he crossed and recrossed, how many times he doubled back and left false trails, the hounds gained on them, belling and baying, and soon, he knew, they would be run down and put to the death –

No. _No. _He would _not _accept it.

The ground fell away beneath his feet, and he stumbled headfirst down an unexpected slope. He cried out in shock and pain, and Kevin screamed in high-pitched terror. The world tilted and whirled, and then exploded in shades of crimson when he landed on his back.

He blacked out for a few seconds –

And came back to the sound of frantic begging. "Please Jim, wake up, I'm scared, don't die and leave me alone, you have to get up we have to get _out of here –"_

Kevin tugged desperately at his shoulders, trying to wake him, trying to move him. Soon they could hear the hunters crashing through the undergrowth, hear the thudding of human feet and the hounds' eager panting.

Kevin's face was grey and drawn with terror. Just two days earlier, when the executions began, he saw his parents and two elder brothers dragged out of their house and shot down in the street. No six-year old boy should have eyes that wide and haunted – but there were no innocents left on Tarsus IV, not anymore.

"I'm here, Kevin," Jim managed to gasp out. "I'm here, just hang on –"

But Kevin closed his eyes, clutched Jim tightly, and whispered:

_"I wish that the Goblins would come take us away._

_"I wish that the Goblins would come take us away._

_"I wish that the Goblins would come take us away."_

And as the first of the hunters – whooping, shouting, dressed in camouflage gear and red sashes with laser rifles slung over their shoulders – burst from the undergrowth, time…

Stopped.

"Well, well, well," a fantastic figure drawled. "What have we here?"

Kevin opened his eyes, slowly, and his arms lost their death grip on Jim's neck. Jim stared at the stranger in awed fascination – the extravagant silks, laces and velvets of his clothes, the flyaway white hair and sharp, white features.

"Two babes in the woods," the figure continued. "How does it go?_ 'Come away, O human child! / To the waters and the wild…'_"**

"Yeats," Jim said, bemused, still shaking with fear and adrenaline. The hunters and the hounds were still, frozen in time; he could see the hyped up, murderous glee in their eyes. "Who _are_ you? How did you stop time like that?"

The strange apparition knelt down beside them. Up close, Jim could see that his eyes – eerie and mismatched – were filled with ancient grief and compassion.

"Why, I am the Goblin King," the strange figure answered, as if that explained everything. "And as for why I am here," he touched his white, elegant fingers to Kevin's cheek, "young Kevin here summoned me. The old blood and beliefs run strong here. No matter how far from home they go, humans carry their past – and their demons – with them." His eyes flicked to Jim's. "I have answered many summons, in the last two days."

Jim's mind chose that moment to remind him that the original colonists of Tarsus IV had been a mixture of Irish, Scottish and Welsh. They had left Earth less than two generations ago, hoping to find a new world free of restraint and repression –

And so they had, until the famine.

"Unfortunately," the figure – the Goblin King – continued, "this far from the Underground, my power is much diminished. Shall we go? I don't think I can re-order time for much longer."

"Wait! What do you mean, go?" Jim clutched Kevin tightly to him. "What are you going to do?"

"I will take you away from here, to a land where you will never know fear or hunger again."

"But?" Jim demanded.

The Goblin King sighed. "You are a suspicious child, James Kirk. _But, _you will have to leave the world behind – there will be no return from the Underground. Given the circumstances," he indicated the hunters, "I did not think you would mind."

Kevin whimpered and hid his face in Jim's shirt, shaking and trembling. But Jim had too much to live for, too much that he wanted to do, to see, to become, to give up the world now.

Nothing is inevitable. There is _always_ another way. He believed this with all his heart.

"And if we don't go with you, then will you leave us here to die?"

The Goblin King looked unimaginably weary. "No. Not today. If it is what you wish, I will take you to another, safer place in this hell, where you may take your chances with the hunters."

"We will survive," Jim declared. "My father will be here soon – I can keep us alive until then."

"Can you? And if your Starfleet never comes?" The Goblin King's eyes fell meaningfully to Kevin, small, vulnerable and frightened. "Kevin? Is this what you want?"

The young, frightened boy looked up, torn between his fear and his trust in Jim. He turned back to Jim and burrowed into him once more.

For a moment, Jim hesitated. But then, "I would rather live the rest of my life as a fugitive than sheltered in a gilded cage. At least then our lives will hold some real meaning. Besides, it's a moot point." His eyes flicked up to the Goblin King's, green-gold and utterly confident. "Starfleet will come. It is only a matter of time."

"Only forever," the Goblin King said with a strange smile. But something in Jim's voice and bearing must have convinced him, for he stood up, dusting off his expensive clothing. "Very well, then. It shall be as you wish." He brushed his long, white fingers against their cheeks, almost in benediction – Jim felt a brief rush of warmth fill him, giving him courage to face what was to come.

A flicker of an eyelid, a fall of glittering crystal, and then time –

Resumed.

* * *

FIN

* * *

* Shatner!Kirk

** Come away, O human child!  
To the waters and the wild  
With a faery, hand in hand,  
For the world's more full of weeping than you can understand.

William Butler Yeats, "The Stolen Child".


	22. HalfWorld

**A/N – **Um. This is a little drabble-story that I would one day like to turn into a greater story. I have just finished reading "A Madness of Angels" by Kate Griffin, and have been greatly influenced by her descriptions of urban magic.

**Disclaimer – **I don't own the Labyrinth, any of the canon characters, situations, or settings. No money was made in the writing of this fic. Don't sue.

**

* * *

**

**Half-World**

* * *

See Mad Merlin, driven insane by wiles and enchantments, scrabbling and rooting like an animal in the undergrowth –

It is something all the Shining Ones fear: the madness, the chaotic web of tangled perception and illusion that can be induced by the right curse, the right poisons and hallucinogenics.

But times change, centuries pass, and instead of autumn leaves and feral animal musk, the Goblin King is lost in the great City. His senses are overwhelmed by slick concrete and bitumen, by flickering neon lights, by the haze of pollution and filth, and by the harsh bite of steel and cold iron. He stumbles lost and bemused through dark streets and alleyways, unable to remember himself, his purpose, or even his own Name.

* * *

Far, far from the City, in the great twisting castle beyond the Labyrinth, even the goblins are beginning to feel uneasy. The King has left them behind before, many times, but never before had he failed to return.

They gather in the throne room before the King's chair, a shifting, disorganised mass, and call a council of war. Despite the distractions and heckling, despite the fighting and the useless arguments, they come to one inevitable conclusion: they will go Above, they will find their King, and they will bring him back where he belongs.

* * *

His mind is like a fractured mirror, reflecting only stray images and fleeting moments of rationality: he knows he stumbles lost in the half-world, searching for something – or someone – he cannot name; he knows that once he was more than this, more than a broken remnant. But any hard-won certainty he manages to grasp always vanishes when the cloudy madness rolls over him once more.

The hidden denizens of the City witness his slow descent into mortal hell. They are mainly halflings, fringe-dwellers who have adapted perfectly to this new world of steel and smoking industry; they have nothing in common with a pureblooded scion of the Underground, misplaced and misled. Though he is lost in his madness, he is still sidhe, still one of the powerful Shining Ones; magic runs instinctively through his very breath and bone. He walks with dazed innocence through the darkest parts of the City, shadows flocking to the light he sheds with such abandon, feeding on the power that bleeds from his cracked shields.

* * *

"_Sarah,"_ high-pitched, chittering voices call, drawing her out of a troubled sleep, _"you must find him. You must bring him back." _

Cursing under her breath, gripping the gun she always keeps under her pillow, Sarah flings back the covers and turns on the bedside light. From the corner of her eye, she sees small creatures flee into the shadows of her room, scuttling under her bed, jumping behind her dresser and into her wardrobe.

"What do you _want?" _she snapped, frustrated at this fifth nocturnal visitation in a row.

Cautiously, a fuzzy, misshapen goblin edges into the light. In his twisted claws, he holds a cascading necklace of pearls and brilliant, glittering gems; tentatively, he holds it out to her, in offering or appeasement she is not quite sure. Last night, it had been a robe of shimmering spider-silk; the night before that a masterpiece of filigreed silver, delicate as a spider-web, more tensile than steel.

"_Find him,"_ the goblin repeats, always the same cryptic message. "_Return him to us."_

And before she can ask them who they so desperately search for, or how in God's name she is to find him, the goblin vanishes, leaving only the necklace behind.

* * *

It is a filthy tunnel, smelling of rotting garbage and stale urine. The pitted cement walls are covered with graffiti: spray-painted tags, crude obscenities and other, more obscure symbols. The sole light flickers and buzzes intermittently, moths and insects circling in suicidal orbit – beneath the light huddles a lone, pitiful figure, clutching himself tightly, racked with pitiful, shuddering coughs. He shelters within a crazed circle of wards and protections, the great spiral labyrinth repeated over and over, scrawled in his own blood.

On the outer edges of the tunnel, where the shadows gather and wait, predators stare hungrily at the huddled remnant, tasting the fractured instability of his power. His wards are strong still, pulsing dimly even in the half-light, but he himself is slowly weakening. He is mad, iron-crippled; it is only a matter of time.

* * *

Finally, Sarah gives in to the goblins' entreaties. She is increasingly sure she knows who they are looking for, and if it is indeed _him – _

_Her heart skips and stutters, remembering that night long ago, their gazes lock as they match wits and wills, circling warily until his mad, extraordinary offer – _

– he has probably left a trail like a blazing comet. Surely there is no way that Jareth, the trickster, the twisted lord of the Labyrinth, can pass unnoticed. Even in a city of more than ten million people.

* * *

Time passes.

The madness progresses.

One by one, his wards dim, flicker, and then die.


	23. Echo

**A/N** – _Grass and twining wildflowers grew thick and wild where once the Shining Ones danced. But the land remembered._ Jareth shows Sarah an echo of the past.  
**Disclaimer** – I don't own Labyrinth, any of the canon characters, situations or settings. No money was made from the writing of this fic. Don't sue.

**

* * *

**

**Echo**

_

* * *

_

_Once, he had been a child of Summer, born into wealth and idle luxury in the endless, golden abundance of the Summerlands. Raised on meaningless dalliance and petty intrigue, he'd grown to manhood at the Summer King's decadent court, where jaded, pleasure-seeking courtiers wiled their lives away in debauchery, __playing cruel, elaborate games with hapless victims.__ He'd been a sly, capricious trickster, draped in silks and satins, his eyes heavily outlined with malachite and kohl. _

_And then came the War. The rich Summerlands were devastated. The Summer King's glorious palace was destroyed, the glittering court scattered; the infamous revelries and wicked masquerades were no more than myth and legend now, repeated in low whispers – _

_Centuries had passed since then. Grass and twining wildflowers grew thick and wild where once the Shining Ones danced. But the land remembered. _

* * *

Sarah dreamed of a great, lonely plain, the night sky and glimmering stars arching overhead. The wind gusted fitfully, tugging at her clothes and hair; she shivered instinctively, hugging herself close.

"What is this place?" she asked, her voice hushed.

Just ahead of her, Jareth knelt on the thick grass, combing his fingers through the crumbling soil. He turned as she approached, his eyes unreadable in the faint light, although she thought that he looked unusually solemn, his normal quicksilver mood subdued.

It was not the first time he had called her to him in a dream, spirited her away into a fantasy. But this time there was no teasing flirtation, no sharp-edged deviltry; this time, she sensed, he meant to show her something very different.

"Watch," he said simply.

She came up to stand beside him, and then, feeling faintly foolish, dropped down to sit by his side. She was so close that she could feel the warm, flesh and blood strength of his body; she shivered in the fitful wind, and he silently unclasped his cloak and spread it around her, immediately enveloping her in scent and warmth. She could not help but rub her cheek against the thick material. When she looked up to thank him, she found herself staring straight into his mismatched, feral eyes, focused entirely on her.

She hastily tore her eyes away.

So it was that it took her a few seconds to see the slowly gathering wisps of mist. It rose from the earth in teasing slow motion, twisting and writhing and curling, slowly, slowly coalescing. She watched, enthralled, as more mist rose and gathered, until she could distinguish what looked like individual figures, circling. Moment by moment, the mist-image grew in clarity and detail. Vague tapestry-covered walls and columns, vaulted ceilings and transparent candelabra rose before her eyes, and the insubstantial figures became ghostly dancers, wreathed in silver-mist finery; at the edge of her hearing, she could hear the murmur of conversation and a faint, half-remembered melody.

"It's a masquerade," she breathed, her eyes wide with wonder.

Beside her, Jareth drew in his breath. "It is an ancient echo," he corrected her. She tore her eyes away from the ghostly masquerade to see that his fists were clenched and his face drawn and white. "I'd heard the tales, but I didn't truly believe..." he trailed off.

She put her hand over his, simple human comfort. "Will you tell me?" she asked softly.

He was silent for a long time, watching as the mist filled in ever more detail. Rich colour began to bleed into the image, the warm glow of candlelight, the rich flash of jewel-toned velvet and brocade; slowly, it began to solidify, as if it was coming to life before their eyes.

"I remember that night," Jareth murmured. "It was a victory masquerade. One of the last few, before the end." His eyes slid to hers, dark, filled with ancient grief. "They say that at its height, you can walk among the dancers, talk to them, even touch them. If you can bear it."

Sarah did not know what to say. "Were you there?" she asked finally. She nodded to the glittering throng, now almost fully fleshed out, circling oblivious of their observers.

After a moment he pointed out a slender white figure in flamboyant crimson and gold. Sarah stared: her first impression was _God, he looks so young! _The Goblin King's younger self was entertaining a circle of revellers, speaking, as he always did, with languid hand gestures; his smile was cruel and malicious, with none of the ironic humour to which Sarah had become so accustomed.

And then, as they continued to observe the ancient echo of Jareth's youth, he stiffened, something pricking his instincts, and _turned. _

Even across the distance, Sarah could feel the power of his gaze. Kohl-lined, mismatched eyes, cruel and feral, knowing nothing of loss or grief or loneliness, with none of the tempering wisdom that came only with hard experience, it was Jareth as she had never seen him before – and she could only freeze, hypnotised.

"Sarah."

She barely registered the Goblin King's low, insistent voice beside her. All her attention was fixed on his counterpart, slipping away from the revellers and drawn towards her.

"_Sarah!" _A short, sharp slap on her cheek, shocking her out of her daze. She turned to see the real Jareth beside her, a disorienting echo. She shook her head, trying to clear it and make sense of what was happening. "Look at me," Jareth insisted, cupping her face in his hands. "Concentrate on _me. _He is not real – _I am_."

She drew in a deep breath, covered his hands with her own and squeezed slightly, focusing on physical sensation and the sound of his voice. "Jareth," she breathed shakily. Out of the corner of her eye she could see the ghost-Jareth pause on the edge of the pseudo-ballroom, caught by the boundaries of the phenomenon. His eyes were still fixed on her. "I think I want to wake up now."

The Goblin King could not quite manage a smile. Still, he bowed his head, and in an instant the world went black.

* * *

She woke in her own bed, her heart pounding. The LED display of her alarm clock, glowing reassuring green, read 3.30am; outside, she could hear the faint rush of traffic in the rain, all the muted chaos of human life. It took some time before her hands stopped shaking.

"Will you forgive me?" Jareth asked, from the foot of her bed. His voice was low and hoarse, and his eyes troubled and full of shadows. "I did not mean to scare you."

"I think you scared yourself instead," she said, trying to smile.

He was silent for a long while. "It – the echo – only happens once every few centuries. I wished to recapture something of what I had lost; something of what I was before it was stripped away from me. I wanted you to see what I could have been, but for the war."

Sarah sighed, reaching out to take his hands, tangling their fingers together. "You can't go back, Jareth. Not if you re-order time, not even if you could have stepped back into the masquerade. You know that."

He said nothing, his eyes still dark. She tried again. "How long ago was that masquerade?"

"Centuries. Perhaps...nearly twelve hundred years."

She tugged on his hands, pulling him closer, until he rested his forehead against hers.

"Life, and living, changes everyone," she whispered. "The war; everything that happened afterwards, both good and bad; those twelve hundred long years: they all made you what you are. Back then, would you have been able to appreciate what we have now?"

He smiled briefly, a hint of the old deviltry. "As you saw for yourself, Sarah, I would still have pursued you. But," he closed his eyes, breathed out slowly. "Once I had you, I'd have crushed you and tossed you aside, never knowing what I'd lose. I did not know, then, just how bitter life could be."

"And now you do." She kissed him lightly, more for comfort than anything else. "Jareth, I won't deny I found the younger you extremely hot –" Jareth bit her, a tiny warning nip – "but you were no more than a boy back then. I'd much rather have you, the man, as you are now."

"Even with my goblins and their infernal poultry?" He laughed, and his eyes – so alike, and yet so different from his younger self's – were less shadowed. "Sarah, it has been twelve hundred years, and still I am an exile. Even now I still wake, aching, from dreams of the Summerlands." He brushed his thumb over her bottom lip, healing the tiny bite. "I cannot – will not – forget. But there are compensations. You, especially, what we have together – I would not give that up, not even if I could go back."

Sarah reached up and tangled her hands in his flyaway hair, and kissed him.

There was no further conversation that night.


	24. TripleShot

**A/N – **Three drabbles. "Frost" and "Lost" were written for Labyfic one-word drabble prompts. "Pilgrim" was written because I re-watched Kingdom of Heaven today and found inspiration.

**

* * *

**

**Frost**

The light is fading, but the small folk dance brightly about her, chittering, their voices like high-pitched flutes. She dances with them, laughing, whirling, her arms outspread. Suddenly they startle, rustling and fluttering in alarm, and she turns, alerted -

And then she sees him.

He is clad in black and grey and silver, his skin very white. Frost, filigreed silver tracery, spreads in the wake of his footsteps and drips from his feathered cloak.

"Jareth," she breathes, her breath fogging in the winter air.

His strange, alien eyes meet hers, and he smiles.

"Hello, Sarah," he drawls.

**

* * *

**

**Lost**

"I cannot see the way," Jareth mutters. Dried blood stains his parchment-white face, is spattered across the filthy alley's walls. "I can't remember..."

The poisonous bite of steel and filthy pollution assails him, the chaos of humanity (traffic screeching music blaring voices shouting construction work pounding) swallowing him whole. In the heart of the great city, the pinnacle of humankind's civilisation, the madness takes him.

(See the mad King! the fringe-dwellers laugh cruelly. How his pure blood betrays him!)

Days later they find him, a tatterdemalion Pied Piper, singing with children in the park.

**

* * *

**

**Pilgrim**

His first impression of the Holy Land is of the burning sky: a great vault of extraordinary blue arching over endless golden deserts and vast expanses of featureless waste. It is a cruel, fierce land, without mercy or pity; Jareth finds it stark, intriguing, and utterly alien.

He strolls through the great bazaar, enjoying humanity in all its colour and noise. The air smells of dust and spices, filth and sacred incense. Lepers and beggars share the cobbles with vendors of luminous silks; street-children dart daringly across the paths of haughty Christian knights on their great destriers. Women pass him, black-veiled, swathed in all-enveloping robes, their dark kohl-lined eyes lifted to his in unmistakable meaning – before they lower their gazes demurely and move on. His heart beats faster; mortal passions are heady, and he is by no means immune to temptation.

This land has its own spirits and legends: fierce elemental djinn, formed of earth and fire and wind. Sometimes he can feel them as he passes through, feel their distant attention –

He is a very long way from home.


	25. Winter Fires

**A/N - **Written for the labyfic Winterfest on LJ. Feedback is greatly appreciated.  
**Disclaimer: **I don't own Labyrinth, any of the canon characters, settings or concepts. No money was made in the writing of this ficlet.**  
Summary: **_"This is the night of the Midwinter Fires. Thousands of years before your birth, I saw you."_

_

* * *

_

**Winter Fires**

**

* * *

**

It was close on midnight, less than ten minutes before the clock signalled the end of Christmas day. Candles guttered in their sockets, the light flickering dimly over her, curled up asleep on the couch. A half-empty bottle of wine sat on the floor, a glass tipped over beside it; outside, carollers strolled up and down the street, their interwoven harmonies chasing Sarah down into her dreams.

As always, when the darkness lifted, she stood on a great, windswept plain, the night sky above her blazing with the light of unfamiliar stars. Jareth crouched nearby, warming his hands at a tiny camp fire.

"What is this place?" she asked, walking over to join him.

"I am unforgivably late," he said, rising to hand her a glass of mulled wine. "We had our own midwinter communion to celebrate. It was – tiring."

She took a sip. It was heavily spiced, fragrant and rich; it warmed her right to her toes. "Cinnamon and nutmeg, ginger – what else do you put in this? Never mind that," she said hastily, because she had no wish to divert the conversation. "Jareth – why do you always bring me here first?"

He looked away. "There is something I wish to show you. Something that sustained me for long centuries."

The endless sea of silver-green grass was grey and colourless in the moonlight. In the distance, she could see a dark, mirror-like expanse of water; a great glass lake reflecting the vaulted sky. It was silent, beautiful, and utterly lonely.

"Do you trust me, Sarah?" Jareth asked.

"Always," she replied.

* * *

The dream shifted around her.

* * *

Arm in arm, dressed in matching royal blue and silver, Jareth and Sarah strolled through a woodland winter fantasy. Tiny snowflake fairies danced around them, refracting the light; fixed balls of steadily-glowing mage-lights illuminated the path. Up ahead, she could hear drums pounding out a primal rhythm, and the skirling ululations of flutes and pipes. The music was infectious, and began to work on her; her feet tapped and twitched of their own volition, her body began to sway and bend.

"Jareth," she gasped, grabbing his arm tightly. "The music –"

He twisted his wrist, flashed an iridescent crystal that transformed instantly into glittering gold and silver dust. His eyes laughing and mischievous, he blew gently, sending the cloud of dust directly into her face.

Coughing, cursing, Sarah tried to wave the dust away –

She sneezed.

But the compulsive urge to dance was gone, and the music had lost its spell.

Grinning, Jareth drew her closer and led her towards a break in the trees. "Look, Sarah," he breathed into her ear. "See."

The winter forest gave way to a bonfire burning in a vast clearing, the firelight throwing leaping shadows over the neighbouring trees, their branches stripped winter-bare and heaped with snow. Lit by fire-, moon- and star-light, the Lords and Ladies danced, dressed in silks and velvets and satins, embellished with twigs and leaves, feathers, antlers and skins. Spurred on by the bonfire, by the pounding rhythm of the drums, they bent and twisted and leaped, shadows making them seem both more and less than what they were.

Her eyes were drawn to one particular figure, white hair a beacon in the confusion. His face was disguised by a macabre mask of feather and thorn, but she would know him anywhere – and so, it seemed, would he recognise her, because he felt her gaze and turned to face her –

"This is the night of the Midwinter Fires," Jareth breathed, beside her. "Thousands of years before your birth, I saw you."

She tore her eyes away from Jareth's younger self with a jolt. Turned to Jareth beside her, his strange Otherness highlighted by the flickering light. His alien eyes were fixed on her with almost painful intensity, and she was not – quite – comfortable with what she saw there.

"Jareth," Sarah whispered, "don't make me into something I'm not."

He smiled, a little sadly. "What I feel for you is beyond your control, Sarah. As is what he –" Jareth indicated his younger self, still staring fixedly, "– sees in you tonight, to take with him into the grim future."

"But he doesn't see _me_," she protested.

"Ah. But I do. And he will." And he drew her into the dance, guiding her through the swift, complicated steps. She went with him, laughing and flushed; they danced, and danced, and danced, while the snow fell around them, and the drums and flutes sounded.


	26. Four Fantasies

**Four Fantasies  
Summary: **She is sixteen years old. Her dreams are all too easy to grant. **  
A/N – **Found this little piece on my hard drive. I'm not sure exactly what it is, but it was originally based on the Labyfic 'Path Not Taken' Challenge, exploring what might have happened if Sarah had accepted Jareth's offer. Thanks to dansemacabre who offered advice way back in 2008.

* * *

She is sixteen years old, neither girl nor woman.

Her dreams are built on poetry and romance, seething and stirring in her adolescent heart. Princes, knights, outlaws, rakes: all of them and more are represented in the crystal he offers her, glowing so enticingly as he hovers on the brink of victory.

In the end, despite a niggling whisper of unease, she takes his offer.

* * *

She curls up before the crackling fire on a worn, comfortable sofa, half-light filtering through the mullioned windows from the outside, where snow lies thick and white on the ground. It is warm here, amid the haphazard stacks of books, and silent; Jareth sprawls beside her, his eyes half-drowsing as he stares into the fire. Sarah rests her fingertips daringly on his shoulder. He is warm, his velvet jacket smooth to her touch; some part of her marvels that he allows her to touch him, her heart fluttering every time she does so.

* * *

He kneels before her, fresh from the battlefield, fierce pride in his every line. His white hair is matted with sweat and his face streaked with blood, and his breathing is deep and harsh. She had watched the fight, ruthless violence warring with the gossamer-thin restraints of chivalry –

When she touchers her palm to his face, she feels damp sweat, sticky blood, and the rasp of his heavy stubble, and shivers.

* * *

She dances under the moon in a field of silver flowers, her dark hair swirling about her, the earth welcoming her every joyous step.

A twig cracks. She whirls, and sees him for the first time – a stranger, his eyes blazing with desire. She whirls to flee and he pursues her calling in his cracked, hoarse voice –

"Tinuviel! Tinuviel!"

* * *

She wakes beside him in the night. The fire has died down, leaving a residual chill in the air; she untangles herself from his grasp and slips out of the bed, drawing a warm robe around her. Slowly, carefully, she goes to her dower chest and draws out her father's dagger, unsheathing the shining blade as silently as possible. The old women say that he was a warrior once, before he was a King; she will have only this one chance.

In the smothering embrace of the poppy he sleeps, her husband, the Goblin King. The dying embers throw shadows over his body, smooth muscle and luminous white skin, and she raises her dagger high, her heart beating so loudly she wonders that he does not hear it.

With vengeance in her heart she brings the blade down with all her strength. Just before the blade cleaves flesh and bone, his eyes fly open –

* * *

The clock strikes thirteen.

Sarah drops the crystal as if burned, but it is far too late.


	27. The Rite of Spring

**A/N** - Written for the recent Springfest fic exchange on labyfic. I don't own the Labyrinth, any of the canon characters, situations or settings.  
**Summary: "**Seriously, Jareth? A faux-Celtic folk festival?"

* * *

**The Rite of Spring**

* * *

It was May Day. On the village green the maidens danced, crowned with wreaths of spring flowers and trailing ivy, their hair loose and cascading over their cotton gowns. They each held a long coloured ribbon, wrapping it round the tall Maypole as they circled around it; their bare feet stained green with crushed grass. The other villagers, dressed in a motley rainbow of silk, velvet, tie-dyed cotton and cheesecloth, laughed and clapped, stamping their feet to the skirling music. Rejoicing among them, for the most part unseen and unheard, were the small-folk, the lesser fae, drawn to the gaiety and laughter.

Jareth watched from the shelter of the forest, wrapped in shadows and his owl-feather cloak. Some of the braver sprites and nymphs, emboldened by the high spirits of the day, drew away from the dance and started towards him. _The king! _They rustled and whispered. _The goblin king! _

"Little cousins," he greeted them, giving them permission to approach.

Their inhuman eyes glittering with wary curiosity, they ventured closer, close enough to touch, to tangle their leafy or twiggy appendages in his cloak or stroke his wild hair.

"Well?" he asked.

They hummed, wriggling and twisting happily._ Lady Sarah! _They hissed. _Lady Sarah has come to welcome the spring."_

It was no secret, the story of the Goblin King and the mortal girl. It was too good a tale not to be spread throughout the Underground and even Above, and it had grown immensely in the telling. The small-folk were happy to find themselves active participants in such a grand romance.

"Thank you, little cousins," he said, well-wishing them. They were still humming and wriggling as he rose and sauntered down the hill towards the village.

* * *

"Well, well," a silken voice drawled in her ear. "A charming festival."

Sarah closed her eyes, drew in a long breath. She'd known, as soon as she saw the gambolling sprites darting in and out of the crowd, that he would soon appear. It seemed that everywhere she went these days there was an army of giggling, matchmaking small-folk.

"Seriously, Jareth?" she asked. "A faux-Celtic folk festival?" She'd felt sure she would be safe.

"So long as the spirit is reverent, Sarah, I doubt the gods care about the form." She heard laughter in his voice. "And really, to have the ring of authenticity, there would have to be a lot more mud. I don't miss it."

Despite herself, she laughed. She turned to face him, surprised as always by how very alien he was. Dressed in tattered silk and velvet and a ragged owl-feather cloak, she wondered that more people did not notice him, for he stood out like a hawk amongst cheesecloth-clad sparrows.

"Why are you here?" she asked, as she did every time he caught up with her. And, just as he did every time, he gave her a different answer.

"Why, Sarah," he smiled. "Behold me, one of the great Lords of the Underground, singling you out at the spring festival –"

"Thanks very much," she muttered, embarrassed by the reminder of her girlish daydreams.

"–Singling you out, I say, where I shall dance every dance with you, and afterwards carry you off to my castle beyond the goblin city –"

"And where, in this grand plan of yours, is the mud?"

"I assure you, my kingdom has more than its share of mud. I'm not a fairy King, Sarah; only the goblin king."

She eyed him resentfully, as always hating his ability to disarm her. "One dance."

"I beg your pardon?" His eyes widened, and she almost believed him.

"I will give you one dance, Jareth. And after that, if it pleases me, I may grant you another." She lifted her chin, held out her hand to him, haughty and regal. He bowed over it, wicked eyes never leaving hers as he turned it over and pressed a kiss to her palm.

"That will do," he said.


	28. TimeSwap I

**TimeSwap I  
****Disclaimer** – I don't own the Labyrinth, any of the canon characters, settings or situations.  
**Summary: **Jareth wakes in a stranger's bed. There is something very wrong here.

* * *

He woke slowly, drifting in a haze of sensation and distant awareness. He recognised the brush of fur and the soft scratch of spider-silk, and a warm, vital presence beside him. His mouth was thick and foul with the aftertaste of spring wine and aphrodisiacs, but he managed to slide out from the tangled nest of covers and throw open the tapestried bed curtains, letting in the bright dawn-light.

The other occupant of the bed stirred, shifted, revealing midnight-dark hair and bloodshot eyes. "Are you serious, Jareth?" she groaned. "Do you know how much I drank last night?"

His head ached. He had drunk too much spring wine – and other, less benign substances – the night before. But he was certain that he had never seen her before in his life, much less gifted her with his name_. _The last he remembered of the previous evening was Lysand, his copper-bright braids wrapped in golden wire, and a green-eyed forest nymph with a wicked smile.

"Who are you," he demanded, "and how do you know my name?"

She pulled the covers up over her head.

"I'm serious," he continued. "I don't know you, and while that's not uncommon in the women sharing my bed, I make damn sure I know every single creature privy to my name. You are not one of them."

"Jareth. I've known your name for ten years. We've been married for two. Now close the bloody curtains and go back to sleep."

He heard nothing beyond her claim that they were wed. He pulled the covers away from her (not without an appreciative glance) and leaned over her. She glared up at him, her eyes blurred and unfocused – but then she frowned, reached up to his face, tilted it left and right.

"Your eyes are both blue," she said.

It was his turn to frown. "Of course they are. What else were you expecting?"

She struggled up from under him, reached out to run her hand over his abdomen, over the smooth, unblemished white skin, as though tracing out an invisible line. "You have no scars."

"Scars?" he repeated indignantly. High court sidhe did not scar, not unless the injuries took them almost to the brink of death.

"From the war that ended Summer." She must have seen the shock and bewilderment in his eyes. "But I don't suppose you know anything about that either."

He drew back and stared at her, his skin prickling and chill despite the warmth of the chamber.

She sighed, clutched the covers to her chest and sat up to face him. "My name is Sarah Williams," she said finally. The trust implicit in such an easy offer of her name staggered him. "And two years ago I wed the Goblin King, Jareth son of Aethan, in the Castle beyond the Goblin City and in the shadow of the Labyrinth."

Unthinking, instinctive, he flicked his fingers in a sign against evil and enchantment. There was a spark and a snap in the air and they both flinched, but there was no shimmering haze or dissolution that would indicate melting illusion or glamour.

"Sarah Williams," he said slowly, warily. "The Summer Kingdom still stands. There is no Goblin King in the Underground, no Goblin Kingdom, and neither Castle nor Labyrinth. And the last war in the Underground ended three centuries ago, just before my birth. "

They stared at each other, at an impasse.

And then there was a knock at the door.

* * *

"Milady Sarah," Didymus said gallantly, sketching an elegant bow and averting his eyes modestly. "Sire. 'Tis quarter day, and the petitioners have come to seek your justice."

Sarah stole a look at – at Jareth, but not the Jareth she knew – who was staring at the diminutive knight with undisguised revulsion. "What is that?" he demanded, his voice haughty and outraged. Didymus' eyes widened with hurt and betrayal – and with fear, Sarah saw with alarm.

"That's Sir Didymus," Sarah said. "Your seneschal."

"The Huntress has put her mark on him. Can't you see? It is madness to even harbour him."

Didymus, the most gallant of knights, cringed and shrank in on himself. And then, in a show of courage that broke her heart, he drew himself up and said, "As it pleases his Majesty to withdraw his protection, I shall be gone from the Kingdom within the hour."

Sarah's involuntary "No!" collided with Jareth's shocked exclamation of "Protection?"

Sarah grabbed Jareth's arm. "Listen to me," she said fiercely. "You can't send him away. He'll die out there! This is a kingdom of exiles, built on _your_ promise of safety."

He stared at her, his blue eyes opaque and utterly indifferent. "From what you've told me, Sarah Williams, it was not _my _promise at all." He shook off her grip, rose from the bed in all his painful flawless beauty, and swept past Didymus without a word.

* * *

Later, much later, she would be able to reconstruct most of the happenings of that disastrous day. Sweeping through the twisting corridors of the Castle, every crack and stone of which recognised him as master, Jareth had come at last to the great hall and its rioting populace of goblins and chickens. To say that he had been displeased had been an understatement. The first poor goblin unfortunate enough to mob him had been thrown against the wall with force enough to shatter every bone in its body.

The goblins were shocked and traumatised. The king was temperamental, yes. He threw magnificent tantrums and kicked and tossed the goblins and even threw them into the Bog. But though he was capricious he was never, ever overly cruel; he never used the full force of his magic and strength to harm.

After that Jareth stormed into the Labyrinth, the ancient dusty flagstones responding to his every footfall, undeniable proof, to a being who did not want to face it, that here was something of his own creation. He vented his wrath on the stone maze, caring little for its subliminal cries; the Labyrinth lay quivering under its master's heavy hand and did not dare defend itself.

Sarah heard, though. She ran out to stop him, confronting him in one of the innumerable hidden gardens. "Stop it!" she shouted, her hair whipping around her. "You're hurting it!"

He turned to face her, his face white and shining with power. His eyes burned angrily. "Do you mean to tell me that _this_ is my kingdom?" He swept a hand around him. "A crumbling stone maze filled with outlaws and a draughty castle overrun with vermin? A _mortal _wife? What madness is this?"

She flinched, reached out to him. "Jareth, please."

He snarled and took a step back. "Don't touch me!" Suddenly he covered his face with his hands and sank down on an old stone bench. "Oh, gods," he whispered. "What happened to my life?"

And in that moment, she saw past the anger and into the fear that lay behind it, the fear of a very young man – for that was what he was, despite his power and his three hundred years – who had been displaced in time and space, and was slowly coming to believe that all he knew and loved was gone.


	29. TimeSwap II

**TimeSwap II  
****Disclaimer:** I don't own the Labyrinth, any of the canon characters, settings or situations.  
**Summary: **The other side of the mirror. Companion fic to TimeSwap I.

* * *

He wakes slowly, drifting in a haze of sensation and distant awareness. He recognises the brush of fur and the soft scratch of spider-silk, the warm, vital presences beside him, even the chill of the winter air, but it all feels strange, somehow disconnected. This is not his bed. This is not his chamber. This is not his –

His mouth is thick and foul with the aftertaste of summer wine and aphrodisiac drugs, but he manages to slide out from the tangled nest of covers and throw open the tapestried bed curtains, letting the bright dawn-light spill in. Groaning, one of the others in the bed stirs and shifts, and Jareth's breath catches in his throat. Copper-bright braids wrapped in golden wire spill over the sheets, catching the light, and Jareth knows if he leans closer he will smell the familiar scent of sandalwood and lemon-myrtle, long-mourned and never forgotten.

_Lysand! What madness is this?_

"Are you mad?" Lysand growls, throwing his arm over his eyes, lean muscles shifting under his white, white skin. "Since when do you rise with the dawn, Jareth?"

He had risen with the dawn for more than a thousand years, since the bright Summer Kingdom had fallen, its surviving children scattered throughout the Underground. Since the brilliant, glittering court had been devastated by battle, the Lords and Ladies slain, the great palace beneath the Lake of Glass destroyed. Lysand had fallen in the last battle, cut down before Jareth's eyes. And yet here he is, whole and safe.

The other body in the bed stirs, revealing midnight-dark hair and the barest glimpse of pale, pink-tipped breasts. Jareth does not recognise her.

Confused, his mind still fogged and dazed, he slips from the bed and takes stock. There is something disturbingly familiar about the chamber. It is a study in luxury and careless magnificence: various treasures scattered here and there, dimly remembered; the walls hung with silken hangings he had found soothing; the desk littered with scrolls, writing implements and transparent crystals waiting for activation, and –

Yes –

– On the wall, the ornately carved silver mirror that his mother had given to him when he came of age. _It sees through lies and deception, my dear, _she had told him. _It shows us as we truly are. _Drawing in his breath, he steps closer, and looks into the reflection.

It _is _him, exactly as he remembers himself, with all the scars and nicks of a hard-fought life – the old, faded scar on his abdomen received in a sordid ambush that had occurred (_would _occur) weeks after Lysand's death, though Lysand still lies half-sleeping in the bed behind him. But when he looks down at his body with his own eyes, and not in the mirror's reflection, he sees the smooth, beautiful young body of the glittering courtier he had once been, unmarred by pain and strife.

There is something very wrong here.

He pulls on breeches and boots and throws a linen shirt over his head and, taking care not to disturb the two inhabitants of his bed, slips out of the chamber.

* * *

Jareth gets no more than two steps from his chamber door before he sees the waiting servant. Dressed in his father's livery, beautifully discreet, the footman had obviously been waiting for him to emerge – and just as obviously had not expected him to do so for hours.

"My lord Jareth," the servant bows. Time was Jareth would have swept past, pretending not to notice, knowing that the servant would not press the point – knowing, also, that his father would manage to bend Jareth to his will anyway.

"Yes, what is it?" he asks, with as much dignity as he can muster in light breeches and shirt-sleeves. He looks a little closer, half-remembering the face. "Fionnh, isn't it?"

"Yes, my lord," the servant bows again. "Lord Aethan's compliments, and he desires the pleasure of your company, my lord. At your convenience."

At your convenience, in his father's mind, meant _immediately_. The old, familiar anger and resentment rise, before he swallows them down and regains his composure.

"Very well," he says quietly. "I will be there shortly."

The footman bows a third time, this time with an unmistakable air of relief, and slips away. Jareth, after pausing a moment for thought, heads back into his chambers. If he was going to see his father, he would need some proper clothes.

* * *

Sometime later, dressed in burgundy velvet with gold lacing, he stands before his father's desk. Everything is exactly as he remembered: the carved wooden shelves filled with piles of books and scrolls, the scent of leather and parchment and ink, the stained glass window his mother had commissioned, spilling radiant blue, green and gold light over all. The strong sense of disconnection returns: the last time Jareth saw his father, Aethan had been kneeling on the executioner's block, stripped of his magnificence and finery, but every line of him still proud and haughty as ever. Hidden amongst the crowd, Jareth had forced himself to watch –

"Well, my son?" his father asks, his voice cool and sardonic. "I am gratified by your prompt attendance. You have risen very early after last night's masquerade."

Jareth draws in a painful breath, closes his eyes against the descending axe. "You bade me come, Father."

"Yes, and you are my so-obedient son." When Jareth looks up again, he finds himself the focus of Aethan's full attention. "Are you not?" Aethan rises from his desk, walks around it to stand directly before him. There is nowhere to look but at each other. "There is something different about you today, Jareth."

"I am as I have ever been," Jareth says hoarsely.

Aethan raises a brow. "That has the ring of truth. And yet," his eyes narrow, "I think there is something you are not telling me."

_I am not your son. I am the man your son will become after centuries of hardship. And if I am here, then where is…?_

His eyes widened.

* * *

FIN

* * *

**End Note:** I have been heavily immersed in Star Trek fandom lately, and rather than Trek counterpart-swapping my muse presents me with Labyrinth!transposition. Two companion ficlets were all I had envisioned. Depending on the muse, the premise may or may not be continued.


	30. Fair

**A/N** – Just a little 100 word drabble, written for Labyfic's one-word prompt challenge: "fair". Note this is a Tolkien crossover.  
**Disclaimer:** Alas, I own neither the Labyrinth nor the Silmarillion.

* * *

**Fair**

* * *

"Luthien Tinuviel was extraordinary," Jareth says, apropos of nothing. "Her hair was midnight-black; she would scatter diamond pins through it like stars."

She gapes at him, dumbfounded, her hands going defensively to her own choppy dark cut. "How do you...?"

"I've seen your bookshelf, Sarah. I can recognise a well-thumbed favourite."

"That's not what I meant."

"Ah. Well. I was not always the Goblin King, you know."

Sarah takes a moment to assimilate this knowledge. "And you're comparing me to Luthien the Fair...why?"

He frowns a little, staring at her intently. "In my eyes, you are the more beautiful."


	31. Mobius

**Mobius**  
**Summary: **It is not a matter of where, he says, but when. **  
A/N** - Written for outinthestorm in the 2011 Labyfic exchange on LJ. **Prompt:** 1) Details are everything. In the final confrontation scene of the Labyrinth, we see the clock for a split second, turning backwards. Sarah sees it, but doesn't take any notice. Maybe she should have.  
**A/N #2**– I have made slight changes to this ficlet since it was originally posted on LJ.

* * *

"_You have no power over me!"_

"_You have no power over me!"_

"_You have no power over me!"_

Her last, defiant words echoed as she fell, as the Goblin King's fantastic Labyrinth shattered around her. Somewhere the clock tolled thirteen o'clock; she caught a glimpse out of the corner of her eye, had half a second to note that the hands were winding _backwards –_

And then she landed heavily on hard, stony ground, stumbling to her hands and knees to catch her balance. When she pushed herself back up to her feet, she saw that she stood on the slope of a hill overlooking a long, wide plain. Overhead the night sky blazed bright with unfamiliar stars, constellations she had never before seen replacing the familiar starscapes of the Northern hemisphere.

"Now where am I?" she asked, hugging herself and shivering a little in the night breeze.

"I'm afraid it's not a matter of where, Sarah, so much as when," the Goblin King's hateful voice answered her.

She spun around. He stood a little way off, staring down at the plain below. His tattered owl-feather cloak stirred and shifted in the breeze, a disturbing illusion of life; finally, he lifted his gaze to hers. She drew in her breath – his eyes were haunted, almost despairing, when she had only ever seen them glittering with triumph and malice.

"What do you mean, 'when'? And where's Toby? I beat you fair and square – now give me my brother and send me home!"

"Ah," he said, one corner of his mouth curling down, "if only it were that simple."

She opened her mouth to question, to storm and argue and demand – but was distracted by movement on the plain. Below her, from one end of the plain, a great host emerged; stern, haughty riders carrying tall lances, pennants streaming out behind them in black and grey and silver, a diffuse light illuminating them as they passed.

"What is this?" she breathed. "It's like a dream."

From the other end of the plain rode another great host, joyful, proud warriors in all the shades of summer, russet and gold and leaf-green.

The Goblin King shifted restlessly. "Somewhere – some_when_ – I have returned to, again and again, to no avail."

Sarah frowned. "What do you mean?"

But this time he did not answer her.

* * *

He'd had every intention of trapping her. Even as she struggled to remember her lines, he'd slowly turned time in on itself and wound the clock back. But he'd not – quite – finished his working before she spoke her final words –

Instead of trapping her in a never-ending time loop, held fast by adolescent dreams and fantasies, he'd ensnared them both and dragged her down into his own madness.

And so they stood overlooking the Field of Forgotten Bones, where the last days of Summer came to a brutal, bloody end. Jareth could not count the number of times he had returned to this place, to this day, and tried to change the outcome – all in vain. He could reorder time. He could turn the world upside down. But still he could not _change_ the past; what's said is forever said, what's done is forever done. And the outcome of this particular battle had been set in stone long centuries ago.

He was trapped here, caught in his own web, his deepest sorrows and obsessions laid out for the tiresome human girl's edification and amusement.

Only, as the vision played out before them and the two opposing hosts came together, as the shock of their meeting was enough to make the very earth shake and the noise rose hideously into the air, Sarah did not look as though she was filled with wonder and excitement.

* * *

The battle was horrendous. Even from her vantage point far above the plain she could hear the roaring and shouting, the nails-on-the-blackboard screech of metal against metal, and the screams and cries of the wounded. It was nothing at all like in a book or in a movie; it was a brutal shock to all her senses, a ghastly vision of mud and blood and death overlain with the pungent metallic reek of blood, so strong she could taste it like iron on her tongue.

Below them, on the plain, the russet-, gold- and green-clad host was hard-pressed, slowly giving way to their stark and sombre opponents; soon enough, their centre was broken and even Sarah could see the battle was lost. The summer-bright host broke, the rearmost troops throwing down their swords and turning to flee; the retreat quickly became a rout, and the grim black and grey and silver host harried and pursued and slaughtered them without mercy as they tried to reach the safety of the hills.

It was not until the Goblin King drew closer and drew a long white finger over her cheek that she realised she was weeping.

"Do any of them reach safety?" she asked him hoarsely.

"Some," he answered, "a very few." There was something – sardonic – in his tone that she did not understand; not until the sound of hoarse breathing and stumbling footsteps drew her attention.

One of the bright summer-clad warriors came up the slope towards them, one hand pressed to his side with blood welling between his white fingers. He lifted his head when he sensed their presence, and Sarah started.

It was the same face, sharp, angular, mismatched eyes staring out through a mask of spattered blood. It was the Goblin King's face, across the space of centuries, and he looked directly at her, ensnaring her with the feral intensity of his gaze –

And then somewhere a bell began to toll, once, twice, three times – over and over again, until she realised it was a clock sounding the hour. With every sonorous tone, the world around them grew more and more insubstantial, the colours bleeding away until everything was grey, wispy and almost transparent.

The warrior who would one day become the Goblin King reached out to her, almost desperately. She tried to grasp his hand, but her fingers slipped through his, reality fading as the clock tolled on and on.

She turned to the true Goblin King, flesh and blood reality even as all else dissolved into nothingness. He was staring at the ghost of his former self, his eyes dark and his expression unreadable. "What happens to him?" she asked. "To – you?"

He turned his attention back to her. "He will not remember," he said. "He never remembers."

"Oh," she whispered, remembering the desperation in the young warrior's eyes. She had a sudden sharp longing for the familiarity of her home, the mundane human world where natural laws could not be bent out of shape on a whim. "Will _I_ remember?" she asked, her voice trailing away.

Even as the clock struck thirteen, Jareth flicked a crystal into being and crushed it into glittering dust. With a twist of his wrist, he blew the dust gently into her face.

"No," he said.

* * *

"_You have no power over me!"_

"_You have no power over me!"_

"_You have no power over me!"_

Her last, defiant words echoed as she fell, as the Goblin King's fantastic Labyrinth shattered around her. Somewhere the clock tolled thirteen o'clock; the low, sonorous tones gave way to the lighter, more civilised tones of her stepmother's elegant grandfather clock.

She came back to reality in the old, familiar living room of her own house. It was midnight, and even as she double-checked to make sure that yes, the clock's face did only have twelve numerals, she heard the sound of a baby crying.

Toby.

She drew in her breath, released it in a long, relieved sigh. She had won. She had faced down the Goblin King in his stronghold beyond the goblin city, and she had defeated him at his own game, learning a very sharp, valuable lesson in maturity and responsibility in the process.

And if, afterwards, she remembered that the clock wound _backwards _just before her moment of triumph, she dismissed it as unimportant.


	32. Applied Learning

**Applied Learning  
Summary:** They would all be immensely relieved when Sarah's tertiary education finally came to an end.  
**A/N: **Originally half-written for **outinthestorm** in the 2011 labyfic exchange, but not finished in time. In response to (but only half adhering to) **Prompt: 2)**Sarah's dreams change the Labyrinth. It must frustrating for a king to have someone else have such control over his kingdom. He needs something to change. How will he convince her to change it?  
**Disclaimer: **I don't own the Labyrinth, any of the canon characters, settings or situations.

* * *

The weather was glorious.

The denizens of the great Goblin City, lured outside their homes by warm breezes and dizzying blue skies, made a point of remarking on it to their neighbours – whom they usually only saw once or twice a week, when it couldn't be avoided.

The cobbled city streets were filled with goblins, dwarves and even stranger creatures all smiling and wishing each other good day. Even the most hardened barflies in almost permanent residence at the Muddy Farmer* leered good-naturedly into their pints. The Farmer was a true goblin bar, centuries-old, dark, and atmospheric in the sense that the constant scents of beer, smoke and unwashed goblin had created an atmosphere all of its own, but today the hard-drinking, hard-fighting regulars were, well, cheerful. Upbeat, even.

"It's downright unnatural, that's what it is," Hoggle muttered, maintaining his usual sullen indignation with some difficulty. "People going 'round all happy and smiling."

Ludo moaned happily to himself. Didymus, his hat at an especially jaunty angle, beamed fondly at his companions. "Verily, sir Hoggle," he said, "I believe that Lady Sarah has just begun what is known as her summer vacation."

Hoggle sighed. "And now she'll have more time to read. At least she's finally outgrown Tolkien."

Sarah's infatuation with Middle-Earth had been wearing for everyone, not least because of the rapidly spreading golden mallorn trees which had quickly overtaken the native vegetation and threatened to choke the corridors of the Labyrinth. The King, clearing away the infestation, had reportedly remarked that if he wanted to live in eternal summer he would crawl back to his father with his tail between his legs.

"But she has finished her international relations electives, yes? There will be no more revolutions –"

"One was enough," Hoggle muttered. He still had nightmares of the Firey Freedom Fighters marching against the castle, their bouncing heads sporting defiant red bandannas. Their leader, young Willie, had been a local street kid before he caught the revolutionary fever. It was cruel, what the King had done to him.

"– or spontaneous outbreaks of democracy and human rights."

There was a short silence as they all remembered the Goblin Kingdom's pained and awkward attempts to adapt to a system so utterly alien to its nature. Humans may very well survive – and even thrive – without Kings, but the Labyrinth and the Goblin Kingdom could not. And while human rights included such grand things as freedom from oppression and free speech, goblins would much rather have the right to another drink.**

They would all be immensely relieved when Sarah's tertiary education finally came to an end.

* * *

*Don't ask.

**Much safer. Even the dimmest goblins know that free speech only gets you chucked headfirst into the Bog.

* * *

DVD extra:

The door banged open – a young fiery named Willie (a good lad, a bit dim, his mum and dad owned a fiery eatery down the road) red bandanna, rushed in, eyes wide with excitement. "Viva la revolucion!" he shouted, head bobbing with excitement. He struck a heroic pose, clenched fist upraised – before his eyes rolled up in his head and he slumped forwards, unconscious. He fell on his face with a thud that made the patrons wince. Behind him stood one of the King's Guardsmen, wearing a look of acute exasperation. "What are you lot looking at?" he scowled around at the patrons. "Fifth bloody one this week. Get back to your drinking."

"Verily, Sir Hoggle," Didymus commented as the guard stomped away, his fellows hauling Young Willie away to the watch house to sober up. 'I will be glad when the Lady Sarah finishes her tertiary education. These new ideas of hers, this 'democracy'…"

"Whoever heard of such a thing?" Hoggle asked. "Imagine giving everyone a say in the government. I mean, I can happily imagine doing away with the King, but –"

They paused, frozen, as Hoggle's words echoed in an empty silence.

"He's right behind me, isn't he?"


	33. Lost in Translation

**Lost in Translation (or, A Study in Aboveground Courting Rituals)**  
**Prompt:** The goblins have watched one too many romantic comedies. Now that they are 'experts' on romance, they decide to play matchmaker between Jareth and a post-college age Sarah who has grown a little cynical about love. Wackiness ensues. (Would love it if this one was mainly Goblin POV.)  
**Plot Summary/Author's Notes:** "…For while it is universally acknowledged that a devilishly handsome, unmarried King in possession of a large –"  
There were scattered sniggers from the audience.  
"– a large _kingdom_, I say, must naturally be a very marriageable prospect, our gracious monarch has had more than ten years to secure the Lady Sarah's hand, without success. It now falls to us, as his loyal subjects, to render whatever aid we may."

Written for **knifeedgefic **in the 2012/13 Labyrinth fic exchange on LJ.

* * *

Prologue #1

* * *

It was close on midnight, less than ten minutes before the clock signalled the end of Christmas day. Candles guttered in their sockets, the light flickering dimly over her, curled up asleep on the couch. A half-empty bottle of wine lay on the floor, a glass tipped over beside it; outside, carollers strolled up and down the street, their interwoven harmonies chasing Sarah down into her dreams.

As always, when the darkness lifted, she woke tangled in silken sheets, silver moonlight pouring in through vaulted glass windows, illuminating the Goblin King's exotic, alien beauty.

"Merry Christmas, Sarah Williams," Jareth said, slouched in his chair near the fire. He was dressed in full Goblin King regalia, silk and lace and brocade; a glass of mulled spice wine dangled from his long white fingers.

She rose from the bed, conscious of her long, flowing silken robe. "You've got to stop dragging me into these dreams, Jareth. Surely you have better things to do?"

He took a pointed sip from the glass. "I merely provide the dream-wine, Sarah. It is your choice to drink."

* * *

Prologue #2 – 12 months later

* * *

"You see?" Hoggle asked, disgusted. "That's all that happened last time. Ten years he's been sending her the dream-wine, and ten years she's drunk of it willingly – and has anything come of it yet? No, they're _still_ dancing around it like cats in –"

"_Thank_ you, friend Hoggle," Didymus cut in, clearing his throat officiously. "Well. Friends. Companions. You all know why we are here tonight. For while it is universally acknowledged that a devilishly handsome, unmarried King in possession of a large –"

There were scattered sniggers from the audience.

"– a large _kingdom_, I say, must naturally be a very marriageable prospect, our gracious monarch has had more than ten years to secure the Lady Sarah's hand, without success. It now falls to us, as his loyal subjects, to render whatever aid we may."

"What he means is," Hoggle interpreted, "it's our turn now."

"Won't he find out?" someone interjected. "He finds everything out."

Hoggle looked briefly alarmed. He had discussed this point at length and at great volume with his companion.

"Nonsense," Didymus said briskly. "His Majesty is much caught up in councils with the High King. Besides, he has no reason to suspect his loyal subjects of anything untoward." There was a short pause filled with quiet, uneasy murmuring, before Didymus overrode it by sheer force of confidence. "Now, as I have said, we have sent our trusty goblin cousins Aboveground to seek out and discover the intricacies of mortal courting rituals. They have returned to us with a great treasure trove of information."

And with a flourish to rival the most flamboyant of master magicians, Didymus indicated a sad mound of tattered paperback books and scattered DVDs. There was a general indrawn breath of amazement and appreciation. The knowledgeable observer would have made note, amongst the random bodice-rippers and Mills & Boons, of _Pride and Prejudice_, _Romeo and Juliet, _what looked like a Japanese pillow-book, and perhaps even the jewel-toned illuminations of the _Kama Sutra._ The DVDs were equally diverse: old black and white classics; BBC costume dramas; brightly cheerful rom-coms, and – yes, one or two skin-flicks. _Dirty Dancing _and _Titanic _stood out prominently.

"The committee has made a careful study of these primary reference materials and, after many weeks, carefully distilled the information and concepts contained therein into four primary categories: Money, Rank and Estate; Snappy Banter; Fine Tailoring and Dancing; and the Heroic Rescue.1 Using this information we have come up, my dear companions, with a Plan. Listen closely, if you will, and I will explain it to you…"

* * *

1. Money, Rank and Estate (or, the size of his –)

_For surely, if we contrive to show Lady Sarah the true size and wonder of the Goblin Kingdom, she will react as Miss Elizabeth Bennett did on her first sighting of Pemberley._

* * *

That night, Sarah dreamed of the Goblin Kingdom.

First, the Labyrinth, an endless procession of twisting, turning paths, mad corridors doubling and even tripling back on themselves. Afterwards her dream perspective pulled back, a soaring panoramic flight over the great expanse of the Goblin Kingdom, taking her to places she had never before seen: great snow-capped mountains, where tiny trickling rivulets ran rust-red over veins of pure iron ore; burning wind-swept deserts where fierce goblin warriors still roamed as their ancient forebears had, before the coming of the King; wide, swift-running rivers pouring into roaring falls; meadows filled with wildflowers stretching in all directions, as far as the eye could see.

And then the great castle where the King himself sat enthroned, lord and creator of the Labyrinth, the brilliant threads of his iron-fisted power and control extending throughout the entire kingdom, ensuring its safety and wellbeing –

At that last, alien thought, Sarah jerked up in a cold sweat, her heart pounding frantically. She was somewhat surprised to find herself in Jareth's chambers once more, the King slouching in his usual chair.

* * *

2. Snappy Banter (or, if only we could get them to stop arguing)

_We have observed the great enjoyment the Lady Sarah and His Majesty derive from their spirited discussions. Have we not all seen such behaviour in the reference material?_

* * *

"This is a surprise," Jareth said. "What _have _you been drinking?" By the light of the fire, flickering and inconstant, he looked somewhat drawn and grim, almost – exhausted. Sarah stared at him. She had not been expecting this.

"Sir Didymus gave it to me for Christmas. He swore it was ordinary goblin wine, nothing more."

Jareth leaned closer. "Let me smell your breath."

"What?" Sarah flinched back. "What do you mean, smell my breath? In case you haven't noticed, I'm old enough to drink now –"

He sniffed at her, the pupils of his mismatched eyes dilating. "Your 'ordinary goblin wine' smells very like bootlegged dream-wine, Sarah."

She drew in her breath. "Are you saying that Didymus lied to me?"

"Fairy dust and Firey feather, boomslang skin and belladonna, with sloes, ginger, nutmeg and bird's-eye chilli to taste. That's old Snicks' home brew."

Snicks, Sarah knew, was the old, half-blind goblin apothecary, notoriously doddery; his hands shook so much when he measured out his potions and powders that only the most desperate goblins dared to go to him for more than simple cures.

She scowled. "What have you done, Jareth?" she demanded, not – quite – wary; years of shared dreams, of slowly, slowly coming to believe that he wasn't trying to twist and manipulate her with every breath had earned him the benefit of the doubt at least.

He sighed, slouched out of his chair and collapsed next to her on the bed – his bed, she remembered suddenly. There was still a good distance between them, so she restrained her impulse to flinch away, settling for staring down at him in bemusement.

"It has been," he said, looking up at her, "a very long, tiring month. I assure you I've been too caught up in councils and conferences to worry about what my loyal subjects are up to. If your friend Didymus gave you dream-wine it was his doing and none of mine."

"But…why?"

Jareth slanted her a sardonic glance. "You know him better than I. Why would Didymus trick you into drinking dream-wine?"

Sarah frowned, thinking deeply. As she thought, the fire crackled, throwing warm light and flickering shadows over the familiar chambers, and beside her Jareth, exhausted, closed his eyes and drifted into sleep, his breathing soft and regular.

Still puzzled, her thoughts growing slower and lazier, Sarah slumped back against the pillows and slowly joined him in slumber.

* * *

3. Fine Tailoring and Dancing (or, is that a ruler in your pocket?)

_There must be a ball of some sort: a masquerade, a promenade, even, and a beautiful gown. Naturally, His Majesty must be magnificent._

* * *

They woke – both Jareth and Sarah together – to music, delicate, ethereal; to an ancient forest glade ringed by high towering oaks, translucent shafts of silver moonlight spilling down to illuminate the dancers –

Oh, the _dancers._

Bright Lords and Ladies, all clad in shades of evening and twilight, black and grey and silver, midnight blue and charcoal and dusk. Their white faces were painted with shadow and moonlight, emphasising their very alienness; they slipped in and out of the trees with sinuous grace, elusive and unknowable.

Jareth himself wore a textured black frock coat and grey cobweb lace, while Sarah wore a long, slim sheath of ivory silk.

"Well," she said, trying for blithe unconcern, "looks like you partook of the dream-wine too."

He narrowed his eyes thoughtfully.

(The scene flickered in and out, the dancers fading into a blur. Somewhere on the edge of her hearing, she could hear hushed whispers and muttered argument.)

_What do we do? He knows, he knows!_

_Shut up! He only suspects. Now try again._

Blackness descended.

This time the music was passionate, primitive, all pounding, driving rhythm. Colour came first, blinding firebursts of crimson and gold; this time the dancers whirled and spun, the Ladies' skirts flaring as they flaunted and taunted, the Lords stalking and stamping with furious machismo.

Jareth wore a heavily embroidered bolero jacket, long black pants and heeled boots, spurs and all. Sarah burst out laughing, trying desperately to smother her giggles with her hand.

_No, no, no! It's all wrong! _

_Wait, what are you – stop, stop, don't touch that!_

Wildly divergent dreamscapes formed and shifted at dizzying speed, only to dissolve into shadow and coalesce once more, variation upon variation of a thousand themes. The whispered argument in the background took on a frantic edge.

By the time the darkness lifted for the third time to reveal the instantly recognisable pseudo-Venetian ballroom and macabre dancers of Sarah's long-ago peach dream, Jareth was clearly exasperated.

"I don't know what you think you're doing," he said to the air at large, "but whatever it is, it stops now."

* * *

4. The Heroic Rescue (or, Right, that's _enough_)

_The hero must have a chance to display his strength and capability, to show what a good mate he would make for the heroine._

* * *

Lord of illusions, master-crafter of dreams, a monarch most unamused, Jareth snapped a crystal into existence and clenched his black-gloved fist, shattering it into incandescent dust and flinging the dust into the air. As it rained down on them both the recycled ballroom melted away, the dancers dissolved into nothingness, and the elegant strains of harpsichord and violins died a discordant, wheezing death.

Sarah jerked awake in Jareth's chambers. Her eyes flew to the chair near the fire, hoping and dreading to see him there, nursing a glass of wine, but she was quite alone; outside though in the echoing stone corridors she could hear goblins howling and the scurrying of panicked chickens.

She scrambled out of Jareth's huge bed, cursing her slippery silk robe, and ventured out into the corridors. By now, after years of dreaming, she knew her way quite well: she forged her way through the crowd of goblins hurrying away from the throne room (and quite a few hurrying towards) and paused at the inlaid doors to admire the show. In his worst and blackest tempers, there was nothing flamboyant about Jareth at all, and the goblins would huddle together miserably in dark, hidden corners and silently endure. But they found great entertainment in his sudden tantrums and hair-pulling fits, in the flamboyant shouting and goblin-tossing and melodramatic sulks that came when the goblins' idiocy had exasperated him beyond reason.

This was clearly a prime example of the latter.

By the time she had secured a prime spot, Sarah could see that Hoggle, Didymus and a shifting gaggle of goblins (yes, including old Snicks) were kneeling before the throne looking supremely guilty. Didymus, fearless as ever, was trying to explain in high-flown periods; Hoggle's body language was clearly meant to imply that he had had nothing at all to do with it, and that Didymus had dragged him in against his will.

Across the crowded throne room, Jareth's exasperated eyes met Sarah's, and she burst into delighted laughter.

* * *

+1. Happily ever after

_I don't even know why we have to mention this one._

* * *

12 months later, Sarah woke to find a bottle of dream-wine on her dresser, neatly gift-wrapped and trailing curlicues of coloured ribbons. There was a cardboard tag, Jareth's spiky, sprawling handwriting declaring it to be made by his own hands, to his personal recipe and with no interference by helpful goblins.

Laughing, she poured a glass, drank willingly, and woke to find him waiting for her.

* * *

1. It should be mentioned that the committee also identified another primary category found in Aboveground romantic media: Tragic Death and Star-Cross'd Lovers. This was an old and familiar theme in the myths and ballads of the Underground, and no doubt in every other world that had ever existed since the dawn of time. But Didymus had argued that the Lovers were already Star-Cross'd and that Tragic Death was counter-productive to their agenda, and so the fifth category had been carefully left out of his Grand Plan.


	34. The Great Goblin

**The Great Goblin  
****Prompt:** Jareth is trapped (?) in a different form (owl form is fine, though it might be interesting if he was stuck as something silly or as a goblin). How and why, and how Sarah breaks the spell on him is up to the author.  
**Summary: **A mysterious Orb throws Jareth and Sarah far, far back into a (rather surprising) past. Crossover with 'The Hobbit', plot devices yanked from the classic TOS/DS9 Star Trek crossover episode, 'Trials and Tribble-ations'. Crack!fic, un-betaed and hastily cobbled together, with my deepest apologies to the recipient for this _very_ loose interpretation of the prompt.  
Written for **knifeedgefic** in the 2012/13 Labyrinth fic exchange on LJ.

* * *

Sarah sat in the darkest corner of the centuries-old pub, nursing her half-empty pint under great oaken rafters soot-blackened and almost petrified by time. It was warm inside, and outside it was sleeting and bitterly cold; she had learned to be grateful for small mercies in the years since leaving home.

This was not the way she had imagined herself visiting Oxford.

The smell of ozone and the low, subliminal hum of great, contained power drew her from her reverie. "Good evening, sweet Sarah," a low, musical voice drawled.

"Jareth," she breathed, shaken as always by his presence. He sank down with sleek grace into the chair across from her, flicked out the crisp falls of lace from his wrists, as if it were the most natural thing in the world to dress in silks and velvets in a modern-day pub.

Ten years ago she had stood before this – this _being_ – and refused him. She still dreamed of that long night sometimes, remembering the expression on his face: cruel, vivid, and so terribly, terribly ironic. She was damned sure that Jareth had not forgotten either.

"Where have you been?" she asked, her tone sharper than she intended.

"Here," he said lightly, "and there. Oh come," he drawled, coaxing, when she scowled, "I came as soon as I received your message."

"The message that I sent six weeks ago?" She frowned, but in the face of his ironic, impenetrable smile was forced to concede defeat. Jareth was what he was, and there was no changing him.

"On my last job," she said instead, "Lady Greymantle gave me this in payment." She pulled a heavy cloth-wrapped ball out of her duffle bag and placed it between them on the table, unravelling the cloth to reveal a perfectly round, clear crystal – not one of Jareth's frail, ethereal creations, but a heavy, solid ball.

"Oh," Jareth said involuntarily, drawing in his breath. He reached out and caressed the surface delicately, his fingertips trembling. At his touch, a spark awoke in the depths of the orb, and it began to glow, pale and dim at first, but stronger and more fierce the longer his fingers remained. "An Orb," he whispered, his eyes hooded and unreadable, his voice filled with some complex, unspoken longing.

"What does it do?" Sarah asked, ever practical, though some small part of her imagination thrilled, as ever, to wonder and magic.

"Well, there's only one way to find out," Jareth said, and put his whole hand on the Orb – suddenly it flared into a great, blinding light.

* * *

When their vision finally returned, they stood inside a great cavern, the weight of ancient stone pressing down upon them, rickety wooden bridges and crude scaffolding spanning the vast depths of an underground chasm filled with the sound of a thousand chittering goblin voices. But these were not the goblins she knew and was familiar with – fuzzy and gleefully wicked – these goblins were twisted and ugly and malevolent, and their teeth and claws were sharp and stained with blood.

Down, down in the centre of the cavern, seated on a throne of bones and skulls, was a huge goblin, his scaly skin criss-crossed with the scars of a thousand challenges, his gross belly swollen, and his bulging eyes, for all his ugliness, were sharp, and cunning, and fiercely intelligent. He wore a crown of bleached white finger-bones, and a necklace of teeth around his muscular neck.

"Who is that?" Sarah breathed, crouching low on their little outcropping, trying not to draw attention to herself or her companion.

"That," Jareth drawled, sardonic as ever, "is the Goblin King."

"What?" she hissed. "Surely that's not –"

Beside her, she heard his soundless laugh. "No, Sarah, that is not me – and yes, this is my true appearance, in case you were wondering."

Sarah winced, then blushed fiery red. The rumours surrounding the notorious, enigmatic Goblin King were the stuff of whispered firelit tales in the half-world, the shifting, uncertain borders between the 'real' world and the otherworld. Jareth was notorious even among a people known for their cruelty and caprice; there were countless tales regarding what manner of being he was, his origins, his capabilities, his proclivities and so on and so forth, from the entirely plausible to the highly salacious to the utterly ridiculous.

"So you're not –" she gestured helplessly towards the gross creature on the throne, could not bear to meet his eyes, knowing the laughter she would see there.

"No," Jareth said, laughing, damn him. "But," he cocked his head, paused, "I think… Yes, I think I know what your Orb's power is now."

Down in the cavern, there was a stirring, a rising wave of chittering excitement. From one of the tunnels that led deeper into the darkness came the sound of stamping feet and shrill, grating voices; the goblins had begun to sing, the chanted words echoing in the great stone cavern.

_Clap! Snap! The black crack!  
__Grip! Grab! Pinch! Nab!  
__And down, down to Goblin town you go, my lad!  
__Clash! Crash! Crush! Smash!  
__Hammer and tongs! Knocker and gongs!  
__Pound, pound far Underground, hoho my lad!  
__Swish! Smash! Whip! Clack!  
__Batter and beat! Yammer and Bleat!  
__Work, work, nor dare to shirk  
__While goblins quaff and goblins laugh  
__Round and round far Underground below, my lad! (1)_

A group of perhaps twenty or thirty goblins dragged a struggling, spitting captive through the thronging crowd, cursing and jeering at his resistance; when they threw him to his knees before the Goblin King, Sarah stared in undisguised astonishment – it was a boy, perhaps twelve or thirteen years old, with flyaway white-fair hair.

Jareth drew in his breath.

"Is _that_…?"

But before she could finish, the bright light swallowed them, darkness came down, and then they were once more seated in the cozy corner of an Oxford pub, Sarah's half-empty pint still before them on the table.

* * *

Jareth still had his hand on the Orb, frowning down at it. He did not speak for several long moments. The familiar bustle and hum of the crowd enfolded them, warm and damp and reassuringly human, and outside she could hear the soft hissing of rain and sleet. It seemed very far from that ancient stone cavern, with its cruel, grotesque inhabitants and the young white-haired boy. But Jareth, she thought, was still back there…reliving whatever it was that had happened next.

"Jareth," she said, prompting him, trying to draw him out. He did not answer.

"Jareth," she tried again, this time putting her hand over his, where it rested on the hard glass material of the Orb. The touch of flesh on flesh was enough; it drew him from his reverie, and he looked up at her with a blank, absent look. Then he shook his head, and resolutely pushed the Orb aside.

"It would take more power than I dared," he said, pensively.

Their hands were still entwined. Sarah looked down at the contrast between them; her own hand human-lined, slightly tanned, cold-chafed, while his was luminous white, his fingers long and elegant – no chafing or callouses for Jareth, the mysterious Goblin King.

She coughed, tried to draw her hand away. He would not let her. "So…that boy?" she began.

He looked up at her, and she actually saw the laughter dawn in his mismatched eyes, his ironic composure returning. "Yes, Sarah," he said, his voice light and teasing once more. "_That _was me."

"Then how…?"

He finally released her hand, leaned back in his chair, flicked out his lace ruffles with hateful nonchalance. "It took some years, but once I was finally rid of the previous Goblin King, I was able to turn their focus to better use than malevolent cruelty. I took them from their mountains back to the Underground, where they helped me build my Labyrinth; they're really quite clever with their hands, you know, and delight in wheels and engines and explosions." (2)

"I see they still delight in dancing and singing," she could not help but remark.

He grinned, showing off his sharp white teeth, humour underlain with something far, far darker. "Well. I could not strip _everything_ from them."

* * *

(1) From 'The Hobbit', Ch 4 – Over Hill and Under Hill. I don't have a paper copy, only the audiobook, so I can't give page numbers, and if I have copied the song incorrectly, my apologies.

(2) paraphrased from 'The Hobbit', Ch 4.


End file.
